Someone once told me that a leader should be able to operate at 40,000 feet and at ground level. I have held on to this very dearly and when I look for leaders I push to see the eye for detail. It is not necessary to get stuck in the details. However, it is essential to have a good feel for the business that you are handling and, therefore, the details that go with it. In my experience, I have always found the devil in the detail. I have always, therefore, tried to operate both at the 40,000 feet and at the Ground Level and build a thought process that has the ability to switch between levels in seconds.
Recently, I was talking to a very senior leader in a multinational corporation. We were discussing a point on risk mitigation. While we were discussing a strategic model on risk, she suddenly asked a question that was absolutely at the Ground Level and completely took me by surprise. For such a senior leader, she was asking a question that was what we would call "totally tactical". But, that told me clearly as to why she is such a senior, respected leader.
As we go up the ladder in an organization, there are so many things to manage. We are also getting things done by others and managing them. Over a period of time, we forget the details as we start focusing on other aspects. As we get farther away from the details, our decisions are more driven by our gut feel and experiences of the past and, of course, some facts. However, if we push to get the details before getting in to a point of decision making, it helps us make better decisions.
I was walking the floor of an Operation that had lot of data entry work. I saw the floor was dimly lit. I asked the staff as to why they were closing out lights and working. They told me that light was bouncing off the keyboard and that was causing them to make mistakes as they keyed in data. They were also suffering from headache because of this. This got me thinking. I was thinking whether it was worth putting in light dampers, reflectors, etc. Then I asked the question as to why the staff should be looking at the keyboard while keying in data? Personally, I look at the screen while typing. However, these people were looking at the keyboard while typing...meaning, they did not know typewriting. The cause of the problem was not the light or the angle at which they were placed. It was actually the fact that the staff keying in data did not know typewriting. The solution was to change the test that we administered to our staff before joining. We started including a typewriting test and this changed the situation completely in few months.
One more example that I would like to share is where a friend came to meet me because she had an inner conflict. She could not spend enough time with her 2 year child. This was because of a greater than 12 hour work day at office and working odd hours. This had made both the child and her cranky and it impacted others in the family. When I heard her out for half an hour I thought that she could be facing a prioritization issue. So, I told her that she should look at her current circumstances and prioritize what she wanted out of life…is it family, child and domestic harmony or a job that pays well. Her first reaction was that she did not need the job because money was not important and that the child and family were. I dug deeper and asked her to imagine what would happen if she sat at home taking care of the child over the next year and she told me that she could not see herself doing that for more than a month. I asked her why but she struggled with an answer. I asked her if money was important to which she said that it was not. So, this prompted me to use a Six Sigma technique called the “5 Why Technique” where we ask the question “why” 5 times to the answers that we get with each “why” till we get to the root cause. Normally, we end up with the root cause with 5 levels of why. When we did this, she realized that for her financial independence was critical. The reason for that was a very deep hurt that she had experienced in life when she was a teenager. She had grown up, got married, had a child and her circumstances had changed but she had not shifted from that bad experience in life that had made her resolve that she would be always financially independent. When she realized this, she was no more ashamed that money did matter to her. But to manage both family and keep her financial independence (both of which were her key priorities) she got mentally prepared to take up a job that meant a better work-life balance but with a lower compensation. She has been more at peace with herself since then. The 3 hours that we spent together resolved a very long standing conflict in herself.
So many times we go through life without understanding key issues that we face because we do not spend time getting in to the details. If we do that, we get better clarity and resolution to long standing problems.
As in the example above, the person was able to rationalize as to why money was important and that it had as much priority for her as her child. And that there was nothing wrong with that....to her, and to me, the devil was in the detail.
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