Power of Attending to Details: Two Contrasting Case Studies

Attention to details seems to be getting scarcer.  Coaching people on “Causing Incredible Performance (CIP)” (https://athulyacip.com/) has shown that when they attend to details:

• People who thought that they can’t succeed do actually succeed (i.e., they achieve their goals)
• People who thought they can achieve their goals realise that their goals are impossible to achieve; and hence change their goals. Thus, they prevent failures that are certain.

Here are case studies to exemplify the above:

Case Study 1: Succeeding by Attending to Details

Roopesh was a mid-level technology leader in a software company.  He got an idea for a technical feature with which his company can earn a big revenue.  He was mulling over this idea now and then for a few weeks.  Roopesh was nominated for a program on Causing Incredible Performance (CIP).  In this program, participants were to be coached to produce extra-ordinary results in six weeks.  Roopesh took this as an opportunity to prove to the top management that his concept had an immense potential for the company’s business.

When he started the six-week coaching on the “CIP Project” Roopesh thought that this “proof of concept” would take more than six months.  However, during the session in which he was coached to set an incredible goal, he aimed at successfully proving his concept in six weeks.  Roopesh worked on the CIP Project by applying the CIP Framework.  He also rallied a junior colleague of his to work with him on this.

9.15 am on the Monday of the last of the six weeks.  Roopesh walked into the meeting room for his last coaching session.  After a couple of minutes of exchange of pleasantries, the coaching conversation went like this:

Coach:  Roopesh, are you likely to achieve your goal?

Roopesh: No way!

Coach: On what basis do you say this?

Roopesh: There is a lot to do in this CIP Project and so little time.

Coach: Let us break these into smaller elements and thus attend to details.  Do these now: (a) Make a list of tasks that need to be done from now to achieve your goal; (b) Estimate the time required to complete each of these tasks; and (c) Calculate the time available from, say 10.30 am today to the end of the six weeks.

When Roopesh did these.

Coach: What do you find now?

Roopesh: All the tasks to be done will require 19 hours, I have at least 38 hours; my colleague and I have 76 person hours.

Coach: Yes. And therefore…

Roopesh: Looks like I can achieve my goal, even with other things I have to do this week.

Coach: How will you achieve your goal and, thus, be successful?

Roopesh: My colleague and I have to do the tasks I listed.

Coach: Yes. Please go ahead and succeed.

Around 3.30 pm on Thursday, Roopesh sent the following message to the Coach: Proof of concept successfully demonstrated to the top management.

What seemed impossible was actually achieved with more than a day to spare!  What made this difference? Attending to details!  Now you also know what to do when you have these thoughts:  “Lots to do” or “So little time”.

 Case Study 2: Preventing Failure by Attending to Details

Shankar managed the Indian operations of his company.  A part of the company’s comprehensive solution seemed to have a market of its own.  Shankar wanted to get customers during the three-month long CIP Project.  Setting his incredible goal itself was delayed by a month due to several reasons.  Shankar came up with the ‘incredible goal’ of getting at least four customers by the end of the three months.  His Coach asked Shankar to come up with his action plan to achieve this goal.  Shankar made his action plan that included the actions that needed to be taken and the estimated duration for each of these actions.  He presented this plan to his Coach.

Coach: Nice to know that you have come up with the plan.  What is the total number of days required to complete these actions?

Shankar quickly added the estimated time for each action and said, “46 days.”

Coach: For getting how many customers are these 46 days needed?

Shankar: For each customer

Coach: Then, for getting four customers, how many days will be required?

Shankar:  Some of these actions can be done simultaneously for many customers.  Buy I can’t say how many days will be required.

Coach: I want you to think of something.  For this, let us make the absolutely impractical assumption that you can do all everyone of these actions for at least four customers simultaneously.  With this assumption, you can get at least four customers in 46 days, and thus achieve your goal.  How many days remain for the CIP Project?

Shankar: 61 days – 30 days of September and 31 days of October

Coach: These are 61 calendar days.  Will all of you work for all these 61 days?

Shankar: No, we don’t work on all Sundays and the first Saturdays of each month.  If I remove these during September and October, the number of days available will be 47 days.

Coach: Will there be any scheduled holidays in these 47 days?

Shankar: (Looking at his unit’s calendar) Yes, there are two planned holidays.  Then, the number of available days reduces to 45.

Coach: One of the actions in your plan is “Signing the contract” and you have estimated that it will take 10 days.  I want you to specify the tasks required to sign contracts, and estimate the time required for each of these tasks for four customers.

Shankar: (Having done these) The total number of days required with these details has gone up from 10 to 34.

Coach: Please do these for other actions that you think detailing will be required and find out the total number of days required for getting at least four customers.

Shankar did this assignment. The next coaching session went as follows:

Coach: Thanks for doing the assignment, Shankar.  What did you find?

Shankar: I find that I need 224 days to get four customers.  Even this will be a stiff time-line.

Coach: What lesson can you draw now?

Shankar: The goal I set was completely impractical.  Had I proceeded with this project, I would have definitely failed.

Coach: What in the CIP Framework helped in this?

Shankar: Attending to details by breaking a large matter into smaller elements helped learn this.

Coach: I am glad you realised this.  What do you want to do now?

Shankar: I need to take up some other CIP Project.  And I will be careful to attend to details when I come up with a different topic to work on.

Points to ponder:

1. Why don’t people attend to details?
2. What should people do to attend to details?