It’s the Little Things … and the Big Things

The relatively short email seemed like just another piece of spam (or worse) in his inbox, especially when it came in with an attachment that enticed him to click on it.  But when our marketing coordinator opened the email – a notice from a CRM company that we only indirectly do business with (they house our data created by using a partner/platform partner) — he shot it to me, along with his puzzlement.

Apparently, we were being storage hogs and we needed to deal with it.  But it didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me – not that this technical stuff is an area where I often feel super comfortable.  So, I did what any other self-respecting manager would do in the same circumstance:  I kicked it to our CRM vendor with a note that simply asked, “Is this something I need to pay attention to?”

Turns out, the answer was yes.  Instead of having just a couple of hundred thousand “relationships” in our little CRM for our 50-lawyer firm, we now apparently had over 10 MILLION!  Cue Bill and Ted:  “Woah.”  And as much as I have always touted the importance of relationships in our firm’s business development efforts, even this was a bit much.  A lot much.

Once we figured out the problem, it took a few weeks to fix it, and we think we’re now in the clear.  But I am thankful that our marketing coordinator decided to pay attention to something seemingly inconsequential or that was even just junk mail.  Without that great catch, we probably would be dealing with something even more of a problem.

Time to sweat it?

All too often, it’s the little things, right? You can probably think of a similar story, either at work or your personal life.  So, am I a convert to the “it’s all small stuff” line of thinking?  Not really.

Many times, small stuff is… well… just small.  And sometimes even less.  And in my experience, that must be remembered because otherwise it’s too easy to become quickly overwhelmed.  And a few times, big things are disguised as little things.  How do we figure it all out?

Well, we don’t.  Not all the time, at least.  But I have learned over the years to develop a sixth sense of paranoia about certain things.  Chances are you have, too.  Here’s what I pay attention to (and not always in this order):

• Money:  Small discrepancies can often signal bigger problems.  When things literally don’t add up, even if only off by a little, I tend to follow up and ask about it.  Things that look weird often are.  While there’s nothing like a budget spreadsheet to trigger my genetic disposition to do absolutely anything else other than math and numbers, I definitely pay attention to this stuff.  It’s paid dividends, pun intended.  Happened just a couple of months ago, too, when our personal savings account got hacked somehow.  I don’t often even look at it when I log in to the bank’s website, but something seemed off about the balance when the dashboard popped up.  It pays to pay attention, literally.
• Technology:  A little “ghost in the machine” can turn out to be a monster.  See story, above.  You don’t have to understand technology to the fullest degree to be able to question whether something seems off or not.  But just do it nicely and respectfully; IT people often have too much to do as it is…  And sometimes (many? most?) it’s going to be your fault because you’re not using or doing something properly.  Such is life.
• People:  Everyone has a “tell” at some point or another.  I’m no poker player, but I can usually figure pretty easily when someone isn’t on the level.  Or at the very least has no idea what they’re talking about.  There’s a bunch of science surrounding this, but many times, if you just pay attention to someone, you’ll see things that you might want to follow-up on, or ignore, as the case may be.

These are the biggies for me, at least.  As the years have gone by, I used to let most instances of bad grammar, spelling and usage  — by definition and in practice almost all entirely “small stuff” — drive me bananas and/or right off the deep end (to mix metaphors, one of my favorite pastimes).

Not so much anymore.  Same goes for responding fully and completely to every email that darkens my inbox.  Important is still important, but there’s only so much time in day, right?  And not every response has to be full and complete.  Acknowledgment can be, and often is, enough. 

But lest you think that I’m advocating the “ignorance is bliss” method of management, I will repeat myself: paying attention pays dividends.  But not to the point where you’re “sweating” anything.  Hopefully…

More can be said about sweating small stuff – because details can matter, even to the highest level of professional like a CEO or law firm managing partner.  But that’s fodder for another post to come soon.

What are you paying attention to?  What little things have you learned not to ignore?  Let me know in the comments below.