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How do you turn a ship when thousands of tons of water are pressing on the rudder creating a force far greater than the ship’s engines can withstand? This was the seemingly impossible challenge solved by the wonderful engineer, Buckminster Fuller, in the 1940s.
The answer was something surprisingly small. A six-inch piece of metal, a tiny rudder, attached to the big rudder and applying just enough pressure to make it turn. So the little rudder turned the big rudder and that, in turn, began to move the ship. This engineering marvel was named the “trim tab.” A tiny element that, when applied at the right place in a system, will have an outsized impact.
As brand teams strive to deliver their strategies in 2024, it’s easy to get swept up in the notion that big changes require equally large processes. And while big initiatives are often necessary and powerful, we mustn’t overlook the power of the micro shifts that, in the case of the trim tab, can turn the ship around.
That said, we are all guilty at times of succumbing to the pressure to make big bets to drive growth in a tough business environment. But big bets require big investments and can bring similarly big risks. In drawing inspiration from the trim tab, businesses can locate their places to disrupt the system to have an outsized effect.
Such “trim tabs” exist across all complex systems (businesses included) and locating them can have a huge positive impact. Just as trim tabs change the flow of water, so we need to change the flow of information, money and power.
What success can look like
New technology can bring about these changes in flow. Just as Photoshop changed the way we processed images—aiding sales of Macintosh computers along the way—so generative software such as Stable Diffusion or ChatGPT will alter the way images and text are generated, with implications for both creativity and staffing.
Ozempic and other diet drugs will affect healthcare by reducing the number of obese people, but also, potentially airlines, as they have to carry less weight on take off. Even innocuous technological innovations, such as the Oyster card on London’s Underground network enable easier travel and, importantly, effective planning as travel flows can be more easily evaluated.