How to Deal with Details for Leaders Who Hate Details
Wrapping gifts sucks the life out of me. Before I wrap, I dread it. While I wrap, I hate it. All I think about is being done with it.
The details drain me.
Dealing with Details for leaders who Hate Details:
Leaders can’t ignore details, even if they hate them.
#1. Don’t beat yourself down if you’re lousy with details.
Frustration over weakness points to arrogance, magnifies weakness, and distracts energy.
#2. Acknowledge weaknesses to others.
It’s doubly draining to pretend you’re strong where you’re weak.
You respect and leverage strength in others when you openly accept your weakness.
Acknowledge weakness to fuel energy, both yours and theirs.
#3. Trust the strength of others but remember you’re ultimately responsible.
Detail-people trust you when you trust their strength.
Questions to ask detail-people if you hate details:
- What should I care about?
- What should I notice?
- What are three critical factors of success?
- Who should I talk with?
- What one thing should I learn about?
- Who is essential to success? What should I know about them?
- What one question should I ask that I’m not asking?
Tip: Add a limiting number to your questions if you have a detail-person who sucks you into every detail. See 3, 5, and 7 above.
Functioning in weakness:
Limit exposure. The only gifts I ever wrap are for my wife. Wrapping her gifts is one way I show her my love.
Value others. Notice details to let others know they matter. When you ignore details, you give detail-people the impression that details don’t matter.
Expand the team. People with strengths you don’t have expand team potential. They are more important to the team than people who share your strengths.
Tip: Beware the danger of devaluing people who are strong where you’re weak.
If you’re good with details, what would you like from leaders who hate details?
How might leaders successfully navigate details?
(“How to Wrap a Gift,” is the reason I HATE wrapping!)
In a world obsessed with the flash and fluff, focussing on details is abhorrent to the status quo. I’m a detailed person. While those non-detailed workers bask in the light of the success, those who hate the light and relish detailed work, work on things that hold up the structure of a business. This behind the scenes work, the details, are critical to the success of the business. Without the details, the business structure atrophies and crumbles, often to the bewilderment of the non-detailed person. Please don’t ignore us … we don’t want all the glory .. just silent recognition to the value we give to society.
So glad you joined in today, Michael. You capture the importance of respecting people who make the machine work. Well said.
If you’re good with details, what would you like from leaders who hate details? I’m known as almost anally detailed in what I do and I work amongst a number who fly totally on the opposite side. I am always bailing out the non detailed, they used to ignore me in some aspects but as failures and challenges built up due to lack of detail and we lost money they now ask me first what to do and I lay out simple parameters to at least bound the issues with minimal detail to ensure success. I have to hold in my frustrations with those less detail inclined.
Thanks Roger. You make me think that one thing detailed people can do is let people fail. Rushing in to help may validate a fly by the seat of your pants approach.
Dan, you so correct I have to be judicious in what I let fail first in others, I have stopped rushing in to the rescue. I gauge the stops by affects, will the failure be small and recoverable with little effort, if so I let it play out then help on the recovery. I also don’t make a big deal of it.
Brilliant. Thanks for circling back. Letting people fail with a purpose is helpful.
Just letting people fail is cruel.
I would like leaders to let detailed people like me have a shot at being a leader…let detailed people audit ur buisness for instance…we the detailed people c things different an value small irrelevant things cause we knw with out the littlest detail nothing could work or be hole…
If you’re good with details, what would you like from leaders who hate details?
To put that person in the position where their life depends on somebody being all over the details, to frighten them into understanding that their “trivialities” are actually a life or death matter.
Thanks Mitch. Just reading your comment puts fear in me!
I’m with you, Dan, on the gift wrapping. I despise it, but I do it! When I’m finished, it may look like a pile of wrapped burritos, but it’s done! Have a blessed and prosperous new year!
Hey Randy. This year I tried to make my wrapping look good. And I must say, I’m proud of it. 🙂
Even if I did hate it. (I just wanted to brag.) Having said that, I’ve offered plenty of wrapped burritos in the past!!
Re-frame the task to make it more meaningful. Isn’t that part of what leaders do?
You’re not wrapping gifts–you’re putting the finishing touches on the overall experience the receiver will have when he/she sees the gift and then, opens the gift.
Love that, Paul. So true. It’s not really about the wrapping. It’s about the person receiving the gift. I want her to feel special.
Not being a detail person, I LOVE having a diverse team where some are detail oriented. Our team would not succeed without people taking different approaches to issues and covering the bases.
Thanks Rich. It took me WAY TOO LONG to learn this principle!! It seems so easy now, but when I was young it was difficult.