My continuing series on Google’s “10 things we know to be true.”

“Fast is better than slow.”

“We know your time is valuable, so when you’re seeking an answer on the web you want it right away–and we aim to please. We may be the only people in the world who can say our goal is to have people leave our website as quickly as possible. By shaving excess bits and bytes from our pages and increasing the efficiency of our serving environment, we’ve broken our own speed records many times over, so that the average response time on a search result is a fraction of a second. We keep speed in mind with each new product we release, whether it’s a mobile application or Google Chrome, a browser designed to be fast enough for the modern web. And we continue to work on making it all go even faster.”

There is a definite theme to the things Google “knows to be true”.  No matter how good something is, it can be better.  They seem to rejoice in the challenge of improving whatever it is they are working on. Since fast is better than slow, no matter how fast they get, they want to keep getting faster.  They measure their current performance, attempt improvements then measure again to see if things got better.  It’s a formula that works in any endeavour and it’s the foundation of the work I do with my clients.  Once they start tracking performance and see the improvement that results from a focused effort, the motivation to continue the improvement grows and grows.

Image Courtesy of Jscreationzs / freedigitalphotos.net

Most improvements we make come in small, incremental steps.  If we don’t measure and track performance, it’s very easy to miss the improvement.  If we don’t see how our efforts are benefitting us,  we miss out on the motivation that results and usually give up on the initiative entirely.  What do you want to improve, and how are you measuring your success at doing it?

About Mike Bonn:  I offer Business Coaching Services and facilitate the unique LMI process to help individuals and organizations improve performance.  If you would like to contact me to discuss any of my blogs, or to learn more about my excellent services, give me a call at 613.743.5642 or send me an email mbonn@lmicanada.ca.