The Mistake of "Intelligence"

The Devil Lies in the Detail

When you come across a great business idea and decide to execute it through an entrepreneurial venture, you might make the 5th Mistake - not going into detail. No matter how good your idea is, "The Devil Always Lies in the Absolute Detail.”

Often while execution plans are being chalked out, we leave out the minor details. We ride the excitement and euphoria around a new idea and assume that our sheer determination to do and to get things done will automatically iron out those "minor" issues. However, you eventually realise that those minor issues were the stumbling blocks that actually got the better of you.

Why do we overlook the details?

I know of this brilliant individual who decided to start her venture after spending a long time across senior roles in MNCs. Her business idea was brilliant, and her inherent area of expertise was "execution.” She was confident about her venture, and several fund houses backed her with generous investments even before she started.

However, when it was time to deliver, she couldn't. Her troubles stemmed from her "assumption" that her family would be supportive. She had not realised that over the years of her corporate life, she had failed to build a support system to back her personal, emotional, and household needs.

She had never thought that the people she was blindly counting on, could have their own priorities! Suddenly, she was hit with a feeling of loneliness. She initially thought she could deal with it. But it just hit her like a train.

Despite having sufficient resilience and strength, her motivation was shattered. Any more relationships, attention, fame, and wealth could not motivate her to go on. She had overestimated her abilities and underestimated the existence of situations around her.

Your plans need to incorporate the smallest of details based on real-time facts. Do not make the mistake of assuming anything about any stakeholder in your plan.

Over and Under Estimation:

1. Attitudinal Estimations

Overestimating people's attitudes to produce the outcomes you desire is not a matter of trust or lack of it. It hints towards your lack of understanding and engagement with them. Still, all the focus is on fixing "attitudes.” No wonder that conversations around attitude are also always virtuous and lofty.

We must respect people, we must allow people to grow, we must work in a team, we must innovate, we must be kind, we should be empathetic, we shall remain patient, we shall be organised, we must not get stressed, we must not instil fear, we should stay motivated, we should motivate others, we must have an eye for detail, we must remain goal-focused, and so many more such sublime statements are made during corporate discourses.

Yet, when it comes to reality, you remain fearful, experience demotivation, are harsh to others, are selfish, self-centred, and unkind. There is a huge gap between what should be and what is. Your scale in life depends on your ability to fill this gap and not on remaining falsely optimistic or delusional in the name of being an intelligent and motivated person.

Being "real" does not mean being unpleasant or serious. In fact, on the contrary, real people are inherently pleasant and joyful. When rooted in truth, you live in a self-acceptance mode and embrace others around you with all their nuances. You do not need to judge or estimate anymore. You engage, and they open up to you for their own improvement.

Those who make the mistake of being over-optimistic or over-pessimistic about people's attitudes, usually witness unpleasant results and lose their own motivation in the long run. Remain real and remain grounded. Instead of living in an illusion, you need to understand the truth and embrace it.

2. Ability Estimations

Just like attitudes, you need to check your tendency to overlook or over/ underestimate your own and your people's abilities, which vary across tasks. A lack of deeper engagement with your people is again the root cause of this myopia. I don't have the time, I am busy, there are too many other fires to douse, I am tired of training people - are some of the common excuses you give yourself. 

You start by making the mistake of taking on too much on yourself and then use it to justify your lack of engagement with people. In such a scenario, you are left with no choice but to estimate their abilities.

Success is consciously produced when you assess your people's capabilities, with them, through well laid out processes and active personal engagement.

3. Willingness Estimations

I have witnessed corporates create elaborate growth strategies. While these documents carry several estimations and hypotheses, one of the critical assumptions that strategists make is that “people want to actively participate to grow, in their personal and professional lives.”

While there is no doubt that everyone wishes to grow, an assumption that they want to “grow in a certain way," and then to assume that they are "willing to act to achieve their wishes," can go terribly wrong.

There is a substantial difference between wanting to wake up in the morning and having the Willingness to do so.

People are happy to express their desires, they are also glad to talk about all the things necessary to fulfil those desires, yet they are unwilling to put in the work.

Willingness is needed in each human, and some examples of willingness are to think, to collaborate, to decide, to participate, to listen, to analyse, to sell, to produce, to improve, to learn, to support, to seek, etc.

While everyone knows that they need to listen to others, most people find this one of the most challenging tasks. The culprit here is the 'low willingness' to listen. Having the intellect where one acknowledges the need to listen, or an even sharper intelligence where one knows he or she does not listen and still chooses not to listen, is also a problem of 'low willingness'.

Your success and scale depend on your ability to accurately estimate people's willingness and not get confused with their desires alone.

4. Experiential Estimations

Tangible and intangible achievements of the past lead to a build-up of over and underestimations about your ability to succeed or to fail. Subsequently, every new business plan gets coloured by these experiential estimations that result in apprehensions, doubts, or overconfidence about the expected outcomes. A mistake we live to regret.

Remember, ideas are worth nothing unless executed. Having the intelligence and the acumen to create is fantastic. But having the wisdom to plan every step and detail of the execution is divine. Try to create a balance between the high-level thinking and the micro-level thought.

Finally, verify every assumption and engage every stakeholder so that you can avoid making over or underestimations about their Attitudes, Abilities, or Willingness.

Happy Growing!