“I don’t do details. I’m a big-picture kind of person.”
The visionaries who make this formula work possess the wisdom to surround themselves with competent subordinates or colleagues, men and women who make the dream come true by focusing on specifics. Whether a CEO in a major corporation or the owner of a small software sales company, a good manager trains and encourages employees to pay attention to the small stuff.
Stick your head in the clouds without keeping your feet on the ground, and you’re asking for trouble. For example, with the 2021 withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan, our politicians and military commanders achieved the goal of ending the American presence in the country, but it cost the lives of 13 military personnel and left friends, allies, and billions of dollars of equipment behind.
“The devil is in the details” goes the old saying, meaning that attention must be paid to specifics if a plan is to achieve success. That adage applies to affairs great and small, personal and public. The manager of a branch bank seeking to raise the morale of the other employees and so shape them into an effective team must devise specific ways to brighten up the work day: piping in music designed to lift spirits, celebrating employee birthdays, listening to complaints and solving problems whenever possible, and getting to know his co-workers.
Overlooking the little things can bring ruin to any project. Recently, a friend working for a nonprofit told me a story. Late in the afternoon, before an important meeting the next day with a crowd of donors, an employee tried to run off hundreds of documents necessary for that meeting, but found the copier out of toner. The machine’s automatic alert, which was supposed to notify the supplier when the ink supplies were low, had failed, and those in the office who operated the machine daily never manually checked those levels.
The staff scrambled around and ran the material to a local office supply store, which cost time and money. They got the copies, but that one miniscule failure nearly ruined a major presentation.
Having a big picture vision of our home life also requires the buttresses of detail. The husband hoping to put some zing in his marriage maps out specifics to achieve that goal. He brings flowers to his wife at unexpected times, arranges getaway weekends, and remembers to say “I love you” before heading out the door in the morning. The grandparents wanting a family get-together to go off without a hitch compile a detailed grocery list, decorate the table, and break out the toys to entertain the little ones.
In his 1758 “Poor Richard’s Almanack,” Ben Franklin printed this proverb, titled “A Little Neglect May Breed Great Mischief”:
For want of a nail, the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe, the horse was lost.
For want of a horse, the rider was lost.
For want of a rider, the battle was lost.
For want of a battle, the kingdom was lost,
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.
Grand visions can become realities, so long as we remember to line up all those pesky details.
