Anthropologist, Margaret Mead, once said: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”
It’s a great quote. Best of all, it’s backed by mountains of scientific evidence.
In Revenge of the Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell found that once 25% of a group adopts an idea, it hits a tipping point and eventually spreads to the majority.
Rensselaer scientists put the tipping point even lower, finding that when just 10 percent of the population holds an unshakable belief, their belief will be adopted by the majority.
The statistician and investor Nassim Nicholas Taleb puts the percentage even lower than that, at least theoretically. As he argues, if 3% of people will not shop at a store that doesn’t adhere to certain environmental practices, for example, but the other 97% are indifferent, virtually every store will eventually adhere to those environmental practices. Why? Because there’s no good reason to lose even 3% of customers, and the 97% don’t care either way.
The math is clear but counterintuitive – the smallest passionate minority exerts disproportionate gravitational pull on everyone else.
This is great news for leaders. You don’t need mass conversion. You just need the right 3%.
We build momentum, one small step at a time. Person by person, mind by mind, heart by heart. Then suddenly, the dam breaks and the movement succeeds “overnight.”
As James Clear writes in his book, Atomic Habits, Ice cubes melt at 32 degrees. Not much happens until then. Does that mean heating the ice cube from 25 to 31 degrees is a waste? Of course not. “Your work was not wasted; it is just being stored. All the action happens at thirty-two degrees.”
There’s a well-known ditty from Germany in the Middle Ages, which ended Benjamin Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanack:
“For the want of a nail the shoe was lost,
For the want of a shoe the horse was lost,
For the want of a horse the rider was lost,
For the want of a rider the battle was lost,
For the want of a battle the kingdom was lost,
And all for the want of a horseshoe-nail.”
Be the nail.
