Why My Wife Swats Flies before Riding Bulls
My wife and I joke that she can’t walk out of the house without emptying the dishwasher. She takes care of small things before tackling big.
Detail-people swats flies before riding bulls.
Flies distract.
Swatting flies frees my wife to concentrate on the big stuff. On the other hand, I jump on the bull quickly and leave the flies for later, if at all.
4 Ways to deal with fly swatters:
- Big-picture-thinkers need detail-people more than detail-people need big-picture-thinkers.
- Accept their need to swat flies. Detail-people function better after they kill a few flies. It doesn’t help to chide them.
- Understand their motivation. My wife empties the dishwasher, before we go out, for a very practical reason. She doesn’t want to deal with it later. Big-picture-people are great at leaving things till later.
- Deadlines help detail-people ignore flies. Time pressure allows detail-people to ride the bull sooner. They know how to get things done. But, if there’s time, detail-people enjoy killing a few small items before attacking a big one.
Leadership application:
- Let detail people do what they do best, deal with details. Don’t complain about their strength.
- Admire and affirm their ability to get lots done. Detail-people finish stuff.
- Detail-people enjoy thinking big picture. But, too much big picture drives them crazy. They worry about getting it done.
Exception meetings:
Ride bulls before swatting flies, when it comes to running meetings.
“Let’s take care of a few small items, before we address this big issue,” means you’ll rush through important stuff at the end. Small stuff expands, sucks time, and distracts.
My wife:
I used to feel frustrated that my wife emptied the dishwasher just before it was time to go out. Now I grab a dish and help, unless it’s the last one.
How can detail-people and big-picture-people maximize each other?
I have a brilliant innovator who often leaves loose ends. I often pair him with a detail guy. Loose ends are cleaned up, and it helps my detail guy grow.
KaChing!
I pay attention to small things first but I tend to dwell in them for a very longg time irrespective of its relevance for that moment. It stems out of a need to have everything perfect. Still working on that one.
https://boardroomchic.wordpress.com
Thanks Divya. You’ve articulated one of the down sides of being detail oriented. I’m ok with 60% certain. My wife wants to be at least 100% certain. 🙂
Detail and big picture people: Jump in and enjoy the ride together. The music and outcomes your make together are usually quite exceptional!
Thanks for the reminder Dan!
Thanks Cindy. My wife and I are enjoying our differences even more as time goes by. A big factor is learning to accept, appreciate, and maximize the difference.
Love the title of the post! I agree to a point about letting detail people relish in the details, but sometimes detail people can become easily distracted, lose efficiency, focus on quality over quantity. An example of this I have experienced in my career is with various accounting departments. An accounting department that can reach a 5 day close in my books is really good (assuming the quality meets GAAP standards). I see on most occasions, the month end close takes one to two months. The worst I have seen was closing a full quarter a quarter behind. I would welcome your thoughts on balancing “leaving the details to the detail people” with guiding them to eliminate the distractions.
Thanks Mike. Great comment. I often see tensions between accounting and management.
There are so many factors to your question that the best I can do is toss out a few ideas. Sadly, many leaders underestimate the importance of good accounting practices until they get audited by the IRS. I know that doesn’t deal with slow turn around.
1. Establish a culture where accounting and management trust each other and work together. If there isn’t trust, account is motivated to spend too much time on irrelevant items because they are covering their butt
2. Management needs to establish a threshold of relevance. Items less than X dollars require less attention.
3. If accounting is stuck and management wants them to move forward then management should physically and visibly sign off on the item and take full responsibility.
4. Provide training.
5. Explore what are the time bottlenecks…be specific. How can they be remedied?
6. If account is behind is it a staffing issue? Sometimes accounting is working full time on the day to day…so when month end comes around they have to keep doing day to day AND month end.
7. Plan for change. When management makes changes it often requires more work for accounting. Discuss changes with accounting before you make them.
NOTE: I notice some organizations are being run more and more by accounting. I think this is a big mistake. Having said that, a healthy relationship between accounting and management is essential for success. Putting the bean counters in the basement isn’t a good idea.
K, so coming from a farm, this analogy makes sense to me in a different way: ever try riding a horse that is being bothered by flies? They are distracted, impatient, and quickly would like the ride to end. Not the best partner. Sometimes swatting flies first can lead to a better ride. Even on a bull.
Thanks sun. Great illustration. I’m glad you stopped in.
Very interesting insight. I always thought that detail people need big picture people as much as big picture people needed detail people. Interesting to know that’s not the chase.
Thanks Jessica. We are better together. However, a dreamer that doesn’t know how to get things done is lost. That’s why I advocate for teams that have more doers than dreamers.
Hi Dan – I was chuffed to read the exception about meetings. I couldn’t agree more. A lot of meetings get derailed because of time wasted on minutia. We’ve built this in to our agenda creation tool – recommendations and decisions are automatically sorted to be at the top of the agenda, then discussions and finally (if time allows) information sharing.
Kind Regards.
David Pethick
Co-Founder, http://leading.io
Great thoughts and perspective, Dan! I actually JUST figured out why I literally swat a fly before I sit down and concentrate on a big project! Thanks for the reminder of how much these two people need each other.
I don’t play the game, but a colleague talks about the “golf bag” analogy: you don’t play golf with one club, you take a bagful. You pack your team with different types: bullriders, flyswatters, buttkickers, caregivers, blue-sky thinkers and people who grub in the dirt.
Think like Jim Phelps: get out your dossiers and fill your golf bag with the mix you need.
I’m very lucky because I have a team with starters, finishers, people who can flit from one task to another and those who can spend all day looking for once piece of a jigsaw.
Great post.
Your wife is ALWAYS welcome at my house…
Dan,
Your comments about meetings is on point – consuming a lot of time on “housekeeping matters” vs high impact items.
Really this makes me about all the unexplored opportunity to do better with meetings, rather than always running them on autopilot with a set agenda.
Omg, what happens to those of us that are both big picture AND detailed?! 🙂
The point made regarding meetings may be overcome with organizational skills — starting with big topics and trickling down to details rather than the reverse will ensure efficacy.
We all have our skills and flaws and if any man was an island there would be fewer organizations and no need for leaders I’m sure.
Thanks for this post
An excellent reminder of the need for a well-rounded team. Too homogeneous and nothing creative gets done!