Big strategic are super scary for organizations. Especially when it comes to things related to sustainability which might not be as sexy as other big bets with trendy words like AI.

Such big strategic bets are motivation suckers, as their impact takes forever to show, and they need a shit load of work to be made real. That’s why many companies love quick wins. Simple things to do that will show if they work really soon (1).

When we're working on improving services to be more sustainable, we shouldn't just chase those big, scary bets that take ages to sell internally. Instead we can bring in the mix some small quick wins too.

These create a sense of progress and give us that lovely feeling of achievement. People see results, get motivated, and then are more likely to keep pushing on those big strategic bets.

Action question

When it comes to making your services more sustainable, what's the balance you have at the moment between quick wins and big strategic bets?

Daniele's notes

• This is the first shitty draft of this principle

• This principle might one day make it in the fifth book in the "Service Design Principles" series that explores how to better serve humans and the planet.

• If you're curious about service design principles, you can get the four previous books in the series, with proofread principles and less grammatical creativity.

Written with AI help
This principle draft is based on an audio note I took while walking that was transcribed and cleaned using Audiopen. I then reviewed and improved the text by hand.