# Bigger and Better By:: [[Brian Heath]] 2023-11-09 In our culture and society, bigger is better. Thus, we tend to seek guidance from those who are the biggest. How did the wealthiest people get rich? How do the largest corporations operate? What do the most famous people eat for breakfast? This tendency permeates nearly everything we do. But when is bigger better? Further still, what value system is used when one classifies something as better? In basketball, tall players seem to be better than short players based on the average height of professional players compared to the human population. So, to be a better basketball player, one should do everything to be taller. Unfortunately, one cannot change one's height. We intuitively know this, so a successful smaller player would adapt their game to be more effective in basketball. They are likely quicker and more agile in moving and passing the ball, so they could become a professional player while still being small. Thus, bigger is only an advantage defined by the game's rules, but not an indication of better for a small person. This is an excellent example of our tendency to confuse correlation with causation. Organizations fall into the same trap. Small organizations think that playing the game like big organizations is how one becomes big. Logically, this does not compute. It's the 5-foot-tall basketball player trying to play like they are 7 feet tall. Many organizations acknowledge this on some level, but nearly all still operate like big organizations. For example, why have employees, why give people big company titles, why have elaborate business hierarchies, and why have quarterly performance reviews? Big organizations have these because they need to manage the chaos they created, not because it adds any value to their profitability. There are many ways to operate "better." One just has to define better in the terms that fit who one is and how one wants to progress. #### Related Items [[Culture]] [[Society]] [[Beliefs]] [[Organization]] [[Size]] [[Paradigms]] [[Value]] [[Business]] [[Operations]]