“When a faucet drips 1ml of water every 5 seconds, how much water have you lost at the end of the week?”
That’s the assignment we got as eleven year olds. Safe to say most of our class got it wrong because they couldn’t believe the number was so big. It was a great experience to learn to trust the numbers over your gut feeling.
A common trope in business is that reputation is gained over years and lost in a second. While it’s certainly true that there are spectacular examples of instant reputation loss, I’ve found that more often reputation slowly drips away. One millilitre at a time. Until the vat is empty. So when we’ve sprung a leak, it’s often best to fix it immediately.