Fresh Focus: The Devil In The Detail

Introduction:

We've all heard the phrase 'the devil's in the detail', but why is it said? Why is it important? And why should you care? Really and truly, the phrase doesn't matter, it's not very important, but the meaning is so key that I felt it was important to bring it to your attention and utilize it as a point of fresh focus for this week.

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was a famous German-American architect who took his work seriously. Famous for his influence on modern concepts and his passion for the raw form and focus of architecture, he is respected by so many. He has a few popular phrases under his belt such as, 'less is more' and 'I don't want to be interesting, I want to be good', but his most famous phrase isn't even his.

Rohe believed in quality, quality, and integrity in the value of any work; he believed in making the effort to produce works of excellence and hated the flash of culture that he felt were just smoke and mirrors to the true beauty in a thing. He is famous for saying that 'God is in the detail', explaining further that anything of true value isn't valuable purely because of the completed work, but because of the smaller little things that bring it together, the things that make something out of this world, are not the large and obvious things, but the smaller, more intricate things are what make up the final masterpiece. This understanding led to an idea that was applied to failure also, the idea that when something fails, it's not because of the larger things, it's not because of the overall thing in itself but because of the 'devil in the detail'. The devil in the detail (no one knows who actually came up with it) places focus on the smaller things that can go wrong, the butterfly effect of actions and activities that might seem small but can bring our efforts to disaster if we aren't diligent with ourselves.

I've always said to people that success is not based on the big things; the reason why it's so hard to be successful for most people, is because it comes from the efforts in the smaller things over time. The whole 'Rome wasn't built in a day' concept or the other phrase about the journey of a thousand steps, all allude to the same concept, our success is buried in the details we overlook day by day.

So...

This week, we focus on the detail, take an hour out of each day to look at some of your systems, processes, and situations in further detail. The aim should be to slowly refine all we do, so we can constantly push the quality of what we do forward, and remain on track to the success we are all trying to achieve.