To Thinking Small

by Tommie Huggins, Minuteman Press
Minuteman Press is an AWC Austin sponsor.

The new year is less than thirty days old and I’ve begun to push back on all the greetings, missives, and experts who encourage me to “Think Big” or “Dream Big”.  They tell me to achieve great things by bigger thinking. 

There’s nothing wrong with thinking big.  I believe in and aspire to it.  I encourage it in my friends, my working team, my children.  Our culture is a think big culture.  We salute the successes of those who have made it big.  Growing a small company into a big one is good.  “Moving up” from a small home to a larger one is good.  Super-sizing last year’s trip to Palo Duro Canyon to a multi-country European holiday is good. 

Big is not undesirable.  It potentially creates wealth, opportunity and philanthropy.  Big thinking and big goals should be a part of every business plan.  But I wonder if exercising the big muscle at the expense of the small might be a culprit that robs us of understanding and celebrating small joys. It may even rob us of understanding and acceptance of other cultures.

In the challenge of big dreams and big achievements there seems to lurk at least the possibility of losing sight of the small dreams and thoughts that enrich the way we move through our world.  We hear a lot about the violence of an over crowded schedule and perhaps in our efforts to keep those schedules as clear as possible we fail to indulge our small appetites and savor only the accomplishments that others will acknowledge.  Taking too much time to set, measure, and celebrate small victories and joys might mean we lack ambition, vision or courage. 

Even a cursory reading of Andrew Ross Sorkin’s best selling book Too Big to Fail, which gives us probably the closest look at the recent financial crisis and the decisions over the past couple of decades that brought us to the brink.  The telling of the story begs the question, “What were they thinking?”

I’m pretty sure the Wall Street scions were thinking big.  Our culture and their boards of directors wouldn’t allow otherwise.  I’m pretty sure they were smart, successful men and women who had vision and courage.  But when big is the number one goal, and I’m pretty sure it was for Lehman Brothers, it’s possible that we become anesthetized to the smaller dreams and thoughts.  Smaller things that are important.  Smaller things like what effect our large goals might have on others, the environment, policy, or goodwill.  Big could use the discipline of going through the filter of small and just.

As I’m setting my own small goals this year (hopefully not at the expense of the bigger ones), I’m thinking I’ll be pretty joy filled if:

• I improve my culinary skills by finding the elusive secrets to the perfect crab cake.
• I make it to a baseball game at Kokernot Field in Alpine to see the Big Bend Cowboys of the Continental Baseball League play under the lights of that “Yankee Stadium of Texas.”
• I find four promising but underfunded start-up businesses to donate printing services to for their well-formed marketing plans.
• I revitalize my own marketing plan by using our variable data capability in a big way.  As a friend said recently, “I want to do small things in a big way.”

And if all goes well, I intend to take a victory lap, look in the mirror and say well done and then move on. They are more than small victories; they are stage setters and exercises.  They make me stronger and more confident and hopefully more thoughtful and creative. 

Dare I say think small, dream small; do the small things with purpose and passion, and everything else will fall into step right alongside…all the way to the apex.