Are you adding or multiplying your way to progress?
Forgive me, number-phobes, today I'm going to use maths as a metaphor.
Humans love to improve things. Maybe you want more clients. Maybe you want better staff engagement. Maybe you want to speed up your 5km time. Whatever your goal, you can think of it like trying to create an equation to make a bigger number.
In mathematics there's an almost limitless quantity of different ways to make a bigger number but we'll start with the most basic pair - addition and multiplication.
Addition is simple and iterative. It doesn't matter how big your starting pile is, addition will consistently increase it incrementally.
Multiplication is complex and compounding. Multiplication has a vastly different effect when your starting number is small.
Just as you can use addition and multiplication as mathematical strategies to make a bigger number, I think you can use additive strategies and multiplicative strategies to achieve your improvement goals. The trick, of course, is choosing the right strategy at the right time, and I think the lure of the huge returns of multiplicative strategies causes many people to overlook additive strategies, to their own detriment.
You can add to zero, but you can't multiply zero. Multiplicative strategies are only effective once you have a foundation from which to multiply.
Let's list some examples:
If you're a soccer coach, teaching basic footwork and ball skills is additive, where teaching complex team strategy is multiplicative. Team play is critical once you're in the mid-level leagues, but it's completely useless if your players aren't equipped with basic skills.
If you're a solopreneur trying to grow revenue, calling potential clients is additive, where complex marketing funnels are multiplicative. Automation is fantastic once you're turning over $20K per month, but prior to that can we just speak to some humans and make something of value?
If you're a team leader trying to improve productivity and team performance, one-on-one conversations are additive, where dashboard KPI tracking and management systems are multiplicative. High-level strategic oversight is fantastic, but not unless you have a solid human relationship with the people the data represents.
Even something as simple as running has additive and multiplicative strategies. Going for a run is the most basic additive strategy. You'll get a bit more aerobically fit each time you run. Something like running technique analysis is multiplicative. Tiny improvements in your gait will be multiplied thousands of times every time you run, but if you're woefully unfit to begin with, they're as good as useless.
In general, it pays to know where on the journey of improvement you are. If you're near the beginning, focus on additive strategies. They will deliver the most bang for buck, and don't rely on existing infrastructure to succeed.
If you're at the point where additive strategies are having relatively diminished returns (since the numerator is now high enough that each new addition is not particularly significant as a percentage of the total), then it makes sense to invest the time and energy into more complex strategies with multiplicative results.