There’s a best-selling book by Richard Carlson titled “Don’t sweat the small stuff and it’s all small stuff: Simple ways to keep the little things from taking over your life.” The key message in that book is to preserve your energy for things that really matter rather than get wound up about the most inconsequential things.
However, sweating the small stuff matters hugely when it comes to developing relationships with other people and we should be doing it more often. Whether it is being more thoughtful and caring towards friends and family or knowing little things about your customer that can delight them, paying attention to details can help strengthen your bonds.
Not sweating the small stuff can be embarrassing.
Last week we had many members of our global leadership team visiting us. On numerous occasions, I was kicking myself for not having paid more attention or having guided my team better.
It was the first trip to Mumbai for one of our Japanese colleagues. A 5 minute ride from the airport to the hotel took him 60 minutes because he hadn’t asked us to book him in a car and we hadn’t thought that it really wasn’t a good idea for him to navigate Mumbai International Airport on his own. He ended up taking a autorickshaw which might have been an adventure for some but this colleague narrated it as the scariest 60 minutes of his life. What a first impression of Mumbai. Yikes!
Our Regional President booked the JW Marriott Juhu instead of JW Marriott Sahar. Nobody had double checked his booking to catch the minute detail which turned out to be a big one. A mistake that cost him at least 45 min in traffic to get to the office every day. He took it in his stride but I’m sure it was annoying to be the one person in the group not in the same hotel as the others.
Ordering coffee for the leaders from Starbucks was another area where sweating the small stuff could have made a positive impression. When six paper cups with hot beverages arrived with no labels and you couldn’t tell a skinny mocha from a full fat one, it started to get annoying and showed us as disorganised. One of the leaders asked for decaf. Not available. Fresh orange juice? Not available. Peppermint tea? Nope. Oh gawd. I wanted to crawl under the table then and there.
You get the picture! It was a hugely irritating week for me. It made me realise how different it could have been had we sweated the small stuff and delighted our colleagues.
Pay attention to the details. Easier said than done. Is there a method?
I’ve been reflecting on this. Here’s a possible three step method (VIC) to pay more attention to any event that matters:
Visualise.
Inventory of needs.
Checklist of actions.
Visualise
Play the whole movie in your head either for yourself or for the other person. Much easier to do for yourself but more important to do from the other person’s point of view. I’m going to Singapore next week. To pay more attention and prep for the trip in the best way possible, I will set aside some time and first play out the whole scene in my head. Pre-trip, trip, post-trip. Packing. At the Airport. On the plane. Immigration. Taxi to the hotel. The stay at the hotel. Commute to meetings. Meetings. Socialising after hours. Return. Just visualise the whole thing in your head if you can.
Inventory of needs
So at each of these stages write down what your needs will be. Make an inventory. Will you be anxious, will you be cold, will you need to be formally clothed etc? Anticipate as much as you can. Taking a taxi in Singapore will need foreign currency as my Uber won’t work and the local app may need a local mobile number.
Checklist
So at each of these stages write down action points. Could be things you need to carry, people you need to reach out to, reservations you need to make, arrangements you need to make. Once you have the checklist, go over your visualisation and needs to refine your checklist. Then it’s down to getting it done.
You can use this process in any number of use cases. For example:
Preparing for a big pitch
Planning an event
Meeting a client
Mapping the experience your client has with your brand
Going for an interview
Completing an assignment
I’m sure there are hundreds of other situations in which you can benefit from this three step-process to sweat the details. VIC is short for victory so I hope you can recall this acronym when needed.
Over to you now:
What’s your view on the small stuff in this context? Does it matter to you or not at all?
What’s the system you use to pay attention to the details?
What are the upcoming events in your life that could benefit from the VIC approach?