What does it mean that small frequent updates beat large rare updates?

Incremental schema revision is less disruptive and more accurate than complete overhauls. Small, frequent updates preserve continuity with what already works while correcting what does not. Large, rare overhauls destroy functional structure alongside dysfunctional structure, overwhelm working memory, and introduce more errors than they fix.

Example: Two managers each discover that their leadership style is not producing the team engagement they want. Manager A spends a weekend at a retreat, reads three books, and returns Monday with a completely new management philosophy — different meeting formats, different feedback methods, different decision-making processes, all at once. The team is confused. Half the changes conflict with each other. Within a month, everyone has reverted to old patterns because nobody could track what changed or why. Manager B identifies one specific behavior — she interrupts people in meetings — and commits to changing that single habit for two weeks. She notices the effect, adjusts, then targets the next behavior. After six months, Manager B has transformed her leadership style through twelve discrete, trackable changes. Manager A is still talking about that retreat.

Try this: Identify one schema you currently hold that feels slightly wrong — not catastrophically broken, just a little off. Perhaps your model of what motivates a colleague, or your assumption about how long creative work takes you, or your belief about what makes a productive morning. Write down the current schema in one sentence. Then write down the smallest possible update that would make it more accurate. Not a rewrite — an adjustment. Implement that single adjustment for one week. At the end of the week, assess: did the update improve accuracy? Write one sentence capturing what you learned. This is one cycle of incremental revision. The goal is to make this cycle habitual.