Attention to Details

Attention to details is something everyone can and should do—especially in a tight job market. Bob Crossly, a human resource expert notices this in the job applications that come across his desk every day. "It's amazing how many candidates eliminate themselves," he says.

"Resumes arrive with stains. Some candidates don't bother to spell the company's name correctly. Once I see a mistake, I eliminate the candidate," Crossly concludes. "If they can not take care of these details, why should we trust them with a job?"

Can we pay too much attention to details? Absolutely. Perfectionists struggle over little things at the cost of something larger they work toward. "To keep from losing the forest for the trees,''says Charles Garfield, associate professor at the University of California, San Francisco, "we must constantly ask ourselves how the details we're working on fit into the larger picture. If they don't, we should drop them and move to something else."

Garfield compares this process to his work as a computer scientist at NASA. "The Apollo II moon launch was slightly off-course 90 percent of the time." says Garfield. "But a successful landing was still likely because we knew the exact coordinates of our goal. This allowed us to make adjustments as necessary." Knowing where we want to go helps us judge the importance of every task we undertake.

Too often we believe what accounts for others success is some special secret or a lucky break. But rarely is success so mysterious. Again and again, we see that by doing little things within our grasp well, large rewards follow.