Little Details Matter

I am a passionate Formula 1 fan. Last week I was watching an interview with one of the managerial and leadership icons of the sport, Toto Wolff. Yes, I know – he is having a tough time at the moment but who doubts that he will turn this around in the passage of time. I was very taken by his description of his first day at work at Mercedes. He describes sitting in the reception of the factory in Brackley. He shared an image of old out of date newspapers on the table and dirty coffee cups not collected. He stresses how important these little details were to him and how this first impression of Mercedes told him all he needed to know about the cultural challenge in front of him. Clearly he turned this culture round to win eight constructors championships. Victory in a sport that demands attention to little details. We all know what happens when a component is not properly attached to the car!

What about the business of putting man and woman on the moon. Little details can lead to catastrophic failure as we have seen with the Space Shuttle. NASA is a world leading organisation at instilling a culture where this is understood from top to bottom.

One of my favourite pastimes is sitting in my own prospective clients’ receptions and noting the little things. The way I am greeted, the way colleagues talk to each other, the precision with which office artefacts are aligned. These little data points tell me a lot about the culture I am about to face. At times, perhaps they tell me that I should avoid what I am about to face!

Risk Audit and NAIL-IT, in collaboration with leading experts in this arena, help clients measure the culture they have. We help them compare the culture they have versus the culture they believe they should have. We do this by interviewing staff, holding focus group session and conducting surveys. The data gleaned is then triangulated to look for patterns of behaviour.

This exercise in behavioural science is not based around some grand amorphous vision. No – it is based on collecting data on the little details as to how people behave and why they behave in this fashion. In other words, why is that coffee cup not cleared, that newspaper replaced with a current version, that screw not tightened.

Understanding the background to these little details allow us to make practical recommendations for making shift happen.

More tomorrow but in the interim, if you want to know more about measuring your culture or understanding your exposure to behavioural risk please contact me at [email protected]