Fix the Small Things Before They Become Big Things

I failed horribly at this once.

I'd joined a new team, and there were a few behaviours I knew weren't great. Nothing dramatic — nobody was doing anything outrageous. It was small stuff. Conversations that ran on too long. Time spent talking about things that had nothing to do with work. The kind of thing that's very easy to let go.

So I let it go.

Partly because it was already happening before I arrived. Partly because I was new and still finding my feet. And, if I'm honest, partly because I wanted people to like me. I didn't want to be the new manager who walks in on day one and immediately starts telling everyone what they're doing wrong.

So I let it slide. Then I let it slide again.

Every so often I'd mention something, but I wasn't really giving feedback. I was skirting round the subject and hoping people would take the hint. They didn't — and I don't really blame them, because I was never actually clear about what I wanted. Then I started to notice our productivity slipping. Not off a cliff. Just a little each week. But enough to see it, and enough to know that sooner or later someone above me would see it too.

By the time I acted, I was frustrated — which is exactly the wrong state to be in. Instead of dealing with the behaviour directly, quietly, in the moment it happened, I sent an email to the whole team telling them it needed to stop.

One person replied.

They didn't just reply to me. They copied in the area manager, the regional manager, and from memory just about everyone else they could think of. That person was not happy with the email. I can't even remember exactly what I wrote now. Maybe it was clumsy. Maybe it wasn't. But I remember precisely how I felt afterwards, sitting there watching the replies land.

I remember thinking: I never want to be a manager again.

For a long time I thought the lesson was that I'd handled that email badly. And I had. But with a bit of distance, I can see the real mistake happened months earlier — long before I ever hit send.

I'd let the small things go until they weren't small any more.

Small things don't stay small

When you repeatedly walk past a behaviour, you're sending a message — whether you mean to or not. You're telling people, quietly, that this is fine here. That's how a standard moves.

If someone spends ten minutes chatting when there's work to be done and nobody says anything, that slowly becomes normal. Then someone else does the same, because clearly it's allowed. Then a third person thinks, reasonably enough, well, they do it, so why can't I?

And they've got a point. By saying nothing, I'd moved the standard myself.

The cruel part is that the longer you leave it, the harder it becomes to address — because now you're not correcting a one-off, you're trying to reverse something that's become the norm. When you finally do say something, the honest response you'll get back is: why are you pulling me up on this when everyone does it?

That question is almost impossible to answer well, because they're right. Ten minutes of drift, ignored often enough, is how you end up with a problem big enough to show on a productivity report.

Feedback is easier while the problem is still small

I used to think feedback had to be a Big Conversation — a meeting, a serious tone, a sense of occasion. It doesn't. Most of the time, the best feedback is quick, calm, and given right when it matters. The thirty-second version of the conversation I eventually tried to have by email would have sounded like almost nothing at all.

You don't need to march down the corridor announcing that the fun is over. You can simply ask, "Is this one work-related?" Or, "I don't mind a quick catch-up, but let's keep an eye on the time — we've a lot to get through today." Clear, respectful, and done in the moment, before anything's had a chance to set.

The other thing I've learned is that you have to know your people. Some respond well to direct feedback; others need a quieter word. Good management isn't treating everyone identically — it's holding the same standard for everyone while adapting how you deliver it to the person in front of you. What can't change is your willingness to say something at all. That's the part I got wrong, and it had nothing to do with technique.

Wanting to be liked can make you a worse manager

This was the hardest lesson for me, and it's the one sitting underneath all the others.

I'd confused being liked with building trust. They feel similar. They are not the same thing.

Sometimes building trust means having a conversation the other person would rather not have. If I see something that could damage the team or hold someone back, and I stay quiet because I'd rather avoid an awkward two minutes, I'm not doing that person any favours. And I'm certainly not doing it for the colleagues sitting next to them who are quietly getting on with the work.

The irony is that the awkward conversation doesn't disappear when you avoid it. It just grows. A quiet word today becomes a formal problem in three months — and by then, resentment has usually built up between the people doing the right thing and the people who've been allowed not to.

Avoiding the discomfort didn't make me a kinder manager. It made me a less useful one.

Look after the little things

That whole experience changed how I think about feedback.

I still don't enjoy every difficult conversation — I'm not sure many people do. But I'd take a small, respectful word early over a reply-all disaster any day of the week. Given the choice again, I'd have the thirty-second version every single time.

So when you notice something small, say something. Not to throw your weight around, and not because every minor irritation needs correcting — some genuinely don't. Say something because clear, early feedback is often the kindest thing you can offer someone: it deals with the issue while it's still easy to fix, and before it's hardened into a habit they'll be embarrassed to have pointed out.

Look after the little things.

More often than not, the big things take care of themselves.