Dig in to the Details

“The devil is in the details,” my parents used to say. I believe that excellence in most endeavors is achieved in caring about the details.

What makes someone’s performance or product excellent? Usually talent, hard work, support, and several other variables, but what about at the granular level? What does that look like in practicality? How do you achieve it? I would argue it’s all about details. This can apply to any industry, job title, or walk of life. As an avid sports fan, this theory is shown well in sports legends’ approach to the game.

Dennis Rodman: Arguably the greatest rebounder ever in basketball, despite being average height for the league. He was publicly known as a wild man, but his teammate Isiah Thomas told a different story.

"I never saw anybody scientifically break down rebounding the way Dennis Rodman did," Thomas said. During warmups, Rodman wouldn’t practice shooting and simply watch the other players shoot. Thomas asked, “What you doing?” He said, “I’m counting. I’m counting the spins on the ball.” He said, “When you shoot, your ball spins like three times. Joe's (Dumars) sometimes spin four. This one spin.” This dude was counting the rotations on the ball on every player. He knew how long it was going to be in the air, how many times it rotated, where it was going to hit, where it would bounce. I had never seen anybody break down rebounding like that in my life. He was a genius, man. Dennis Rodman was a flat-out genius when it came to basketball.”

Tom Brady: With the most Superbowl’s of any QB, Tom Brady certainly exuded excellence on the field; but these details leading to excellence come off of the field. After recently retiring, Brady was recruited to be a TV announcer for games in the future, as is typical with many well known former players.

Brady did something a little different though. Instead of starting the following season, he delayed his start an entire year to leave time for preparation. Brady obviously knew plenty about the game of football but not focused on other aspects or details. He interviewed a large group of successful analysts in the NFL today. He has made several trips to his future employer studios (FOX) to work on chemistry with his future on air partner. Brady is even making efforts to learn the behind-the-scenes business world of TV before working one day.

Ichiro Suzuki: Ichiro’s legend of baseball prowess spans two countries, having a stellar career in both Japan and the USA. Ichiro’s approach and work ethic towards baseball are well documented in countless stories, but one story pre-dates all his fame and success.

Back in high school, Ichiro was an exceptional hitter but being of smaller build (120 pounds) he couldn’t get any power on the ball. Size alone wouldn’t help though; he knew that he needed more wrist and arm strength to drive the ball on contact. To achieve this, he kept practicing the same swinging motion but with different equipment. He used a heavier coal shovel instead of a bat and a light wiffle ball instead of a dense baseball. Many normal people might have considered a weightlifting regimen, but Ichiro wanted that affect while also strengthening that exact motion. A great example of detailed thinking.

Stories like these are plentiful across the human experience and certainly go beyond sports examples. Applying devil in the details thinking can take many forms in the work world. If you want to be excellent at whatever you do, look deeper or wider, care a lot about something small, understand the group upstream/downstream from you, understand how a product works or is made if you sell it, deep dive a prospect before calling them, or just simply be inquisitive and engaged about your surroundings.