Podcast 37: Details, Details, Details

Paying attention to details can help an individual, the team and
the organization. Yet most of us struggle with this important
soft skill. Learn why it matters and how to do it better in this
episode of Serious Soft Skills.


Cohosts Dr. Tobin Porterfield and Bob Graham explore the many
important benefits of paying attention to details.


Among the topics they cover:



Who benefits from our attention to detailWhat happens when we
don’t pay attention to detailsHow to pay attention to details more
effectivelyEight hints for better paying attention to details




TRANSCRIPT OF EPISODE


Bob Graham: In this week's episode, we're going to talk about
paying attention to detail. That's right. Paying attention to all
that little stuff that sometimes drives us crazy with what
matters and how to be better about it. All that and more, coming
up in just a few seconds.


Welcome to Series Soft Skills. We're here to help you unleash the
power of soft skills with Dr. Tobin Porterfield and Bob Graham.
We write books, conduct academic research and are working on
vehicles like this podcast to help people better understand soft
skills.


Can you set us up here?


Dr. Tobin Porterfield: I can, but I have to say the same thing is
that we always talk about soft skills and how you need to develop
a strategy to ensure when you're hiring into your team that you
hire new people with soft skills that can fill gaps in your own
soft skill list. Companies have failed miserably at this.


I'm sure we'll get some feedback from some of our listeners and
folks who read our ebook and say, "Hey, you guys clearly are not
experts in this detail thing because I see some errors here and
there." It's humbling, 


We have some people in our circle who are very detail oriented
and are able to help us with a lot of those gaps. But you and I
can get so so engaged in the big picture and all, understanding
the goal we're trying to reach, that some of the details can get
lost and that can create a almost an embarrassing situation,
where there's errors. If there's oversight and someone from the
outside might looking go how can you even talk about this item or
or provide this report and had made of you know this type of a
mistake, it's clear that you don't know what you're doing and
that's not always the case.


It's a a person who may be quite the expert in an area but failed
to pay attention to detail. So I think there is hope for us and
others who don't always catch all the details and I think we can
cover some of those things and ways to combat that in this
episode.


Graham: Just to be really clear at the beginning, paying
attention to detail does not mean that there will not be
mistakes. It just means that there are fewer mistakes. Every
organization, every employee, every person is going to make
mistakes and I think when I see we first started talking about
the attention to detail with myself, I read it to be no mistakes,
eliminate all mistakes. That's a popular misconception that we
should probably just get out in the open. That's not what we're
saying here.


What we're really saying, in my mind, is we're trying to minimize
mistakes and minimize opportunities to make repeated mistakes.
Does that sounds sort of logical to you?


Porterfield: I agree and I think there's the that parallel. I
think it manifests itself in mistakes, but also it's that
combination between the tactical and strategic. The strategic is
the big picture. Somebody though needs the detailed plan of how
we're going to get there so it's connecting those two things
together. I often work with colleagues who clearly have the
vision or have the direction of what we want to do, but they're
lost in what details what would be required really to get that
done. And if they attempted to do it themselves, I know that they
would forget all of these steps. Will this person need to be
contacted and you had to update this document and and so there
are some important things that have to be done and it they can
often be overlooked. I think that's part of the details they
often say that old adage, the devil's in the details.


I think that's what they're referring to is that you really can
fail to accomplish what you had set out to do because you weren't
aware of all of the details, the the finer points of what had to
be done in order to accomplish it . So you're talking about the
steps in the process so a strategic person's thinking we want to
accomplish acts to achieve the big goal.


Graham: There's gotta be someone, whether it's that person or
someone else who's got to say A. B. C. D. E. F. G. in this
sequence will lead us to that objective. Is that correct?


Porterfield: That's my view on it and and I agree with what
you're saying also when it comes to making mistakes is also kind
of fits well with that and like many soft skills, this also
overlap some with the soft skill that we describe as project
management skills because project management is all about
combining that scope of what we're trying to accomplish and in
making sure you've got an excusable plan to get there. This one
of the kind of combines that and I think when we frame it as a
soft skill, we are trying to remind people that it's everyone's
responsibility to be aware that there are details and that they
do need to be addressed. And how we address them, sometimes it's
bringing someone alongside of you that can check things and make
sure and run it past them. Sometimes, it's mapping out a vision
and even bringing a group together, then mapping it out on the
whiteboard to say this is what we're trying to get there. Hey
don't forget we need to do this and and who's going to take it
that means we quickly can figure out the path. 


It also brings up another one of our soft skills. We can delegate
some of those activities to the appropriate person, who can
manage. Some things we need more attention to detail for and some
need less. We can determine when we need more and we can also see
it as a differentiator among employees. 


Graham: Well, I have a situation that I actually have run into.
I'm going to change it a little bit so it doesn't damage me, but
this goes way back in my career. A manager receives a report on
monthly statistics from an employee and that manager is pressed
for time. The report needs to go up the ladder to her boss and
her boss's boss so she doesn't check those numbers. She just
passes them along without looking closely. Next thing you know, a
few hours later, she finds out from one of her bosses that there
was a really egregious mistake in there. 


We see this happening all the time and I know when it happened to
me as the employee, it real eroded trust with my boss in the
short term. She thinks, Bob, I count on you to do these things.
Why wasn't this done correctly? 


We get to the idea of trust as you're building teams. If
everyone's paying attention to detail, your team's going to
probably flourish more so than when there's a constant need to go
back and check work. Who wants to spend time figuring out if he
did everything he said he was going to do.


The more we can spend our time as a team looking at the big
picture, the better we can be. I agree and I love that team
focus. If I had my team where I wanted them to be acting as a
group, they would certainly start with a recognition of the
importance of the details and that failure to address the details
will result in not fully accomplishing or end up causing us a lot
of additional work in the long run. So having a team that
recognizes it and each addressing it in their own way means they
are going to be more able and skilled at doing that than others.
But everyone's recognition of it and then knowing that is key. As
I put this together, before I send it around the entire group,
I'm going to send it to one or two people to just double-check
and see if I'm missing any major points.


So getting getting conscious of enough that they can solve
problems and also rely on others to provide some feedback, it is
finding the people the team that are some sort of backstop who
can guard us from ourselves. 


Graham: That's really critical so in our case with you and me.
You started keeping a list of what we agree to what our weekly
meetings, which has really made me pay attention to detail
because I can't forget it because it's on a sheet of paper that
you email to me. So finding things like that is one
strategy. 


But Toby we should probably take a break because I've got some
other hints for how people can be a little better detail
oriented.


Porterfield: Welcome back. We've been talking about details
details details and how important they are to teams. Bob, we want
to get kind of a more application oriented here. You have some
helpful hints on not letting those details get past us.


Graham; I came up with a list from my own experience in talking
to a couple of people. These are not any great order but they're
sort of some of the things that when I'm on my game and paying
attention to detail I'm following. The first one is keep a list.
I know that sounds really elementary and many people say oh I can
keep it in my head. I'm fine. But that's really easier said than
done and I find one of the ways that help I can sleep at night,
believe it or not, is to actually write a list of what I'm going
to do the next day before I go to bed. If I don't have that list,
I roll around in bed thinking about all the things I have to do
because I know that paying attention to detail can be a challenge
for me.


The second thing is create a schedule and stick to it. So if you
check your email at 9:00 every morning, do that at 9:00 every
morning you're gonna check your email and that's built to your
schedule. And if you need to do something else -- exercise for me
is one of those things -- I try to schedule it into my day to
make sure that I do it because otherwise, it falls off that list.
That's part of the attention to detail.


The next thing is probably the most foolish one and the most
logical on at the same time. Avoid distractions. Now that is not
the easiest thing for me and distractions come from things that
are essential that you have to deal with. Someone comes and says
we need to deal with this problem right now. But what I'm talking
about is the distractions of listening to music or watching TV
while you're working or goofing off with your friends when you
really should be working. I find that when I make mistakes, it's
often when I'm distracted by something out of the ordinary so
closing my door and focusing on my work tends to help me with
avoiding distractions and being more focused on details.


Another one that we deal with that has really come on the last
10-20 years is the idea we all think that we can multi-task,
which is doing two things at one time. There's a great deal
research now that says that's just impossible; you can only focus
your mind on one thing at a time. So figure out what that focus
is going to be, focus on that one thing, get it done and then
move to the next thing.


I mentioned exercise. Believe it or not, there's research that
shows that exercise will actually help build your concentration
and your attention to detail so getting regular exercise gets the
brain working and the synapses firing so that's real good and
then conversely, believe it or not, it's good to take breaks. We
tend not to be real effective when we work for long periods of
time. The Perreto Rule is 25 minutes of hard work and then take a
five minute break. You can look that up. 


Then the last one I would give, Toby, would be don't beat
yourself up when you don't pay attention to details. I'm a
perfectionist; every mistake I made is a major incident in my
mind and I find that when I can get away from that just say you
know what I made a mistake what and build a system to recover
from that so when I do wrong, I try to find where the breakdown
is and how to fix that breakdown. That's when I find that I'm
actually more successful going forward and I think you told me
you liked my list because you saw a preview. But you want to add
one or two to it.


Porterfield: I want to add number eight because I knew this is
where I get myself into trouble and it fits with some of things
you're talking talking about. But let me get out a little more
specific. For me, I really have to allow time for drafts and
revisions and proofreading. I find that if I'm working on a two
o'clock deadline I will have everything mapped out a be working
and I always fall behind because there was a piece of data I
needed. Then I have to go get it and sure enough I deliver the
product at two o'clock as promised out in the email. And I
immediately get a feat a response from someone saying I forgot to
attach something or I forgot to change the date. If I had just
finished it an hour earlier and sent it out to those couple
people, asking them to take a look at it before I send it out,
then everyone wouldn't see there's anything glaring that I'm
overlooking. So I get so tied up to my deadlines and and people
will probably say about me all yeah he always makes his
deadlines, but if I pressed a little harder, they'll say a yeah
there's so many times you know he needs to redo it. We find
something in these to be fixed and and so I really have to map
into my timeframe to include having time to send it out and allow
that person whatever time they need to look at it and provide
some additional input. So that goes into the scheduling and the
avoiding distractions.


Graham: It sounds to me like your task might be remember time for
revision and build that into your schedule.


I think we've given some people some helpful hints. We've put a
face on one of the soft skills that people tend to overlook. Next
week we're going to discuss another the soft skills complying
with standards, which is when the people fear will be boring, but
we're going to make it come to life. Until then, thanks for
listening, good day and good soft skills.


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