We’re not afraid to admit it. We’re passionate about details. Someone needs to pay attention to these things.

Today’s managers are overwhelmed. They’re busy; too much to do, too many meetings to attend, too many initiatives underway. They can barely keep up with their emails, which today’s magical technology delivers to them 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

To survive, they avoid getting caught up in details. Realistically, they have no other choice.

Yet, excellent managers know when to break those rules. At certain times, usually in times of crisis, those managers meet with their staff, roll up their sleeves, get into the details, and lead their team through the current challenge. If they’re lucky, the right pieces are in place and the team works through the crisis.

Unfortunately, we see some problems with this approach, and we see them often.

First, some managers go to the extreme in avoiding details. They don’t know what it’s like to not have the answers their boss expects them to have. Or, to explain why a project failed because they thought someone else was working the details.

Second, relying on an expert who’s done a task for years may or may not help the organization redesign their business for the future. Organizations today are constantly changing. When we’re looking at end-to-end business processes, integrated solutions, and higher customer expectations, we no longer have time to re-work things because our "redesign" simply recreated the old solution.

When it comes to technology, the stakes increase. We’re very optimistic about technology and believe most companies can use technology much more effectively than they do today. However, too many organizations combine an “I don’t do details” philosophy with the assumption that their technology experts worry about the right details with the proper perspective. This may work for some very lucky managers. The rest of us need to work a bit harder.

At Business Architects, we believe details matter, particularly as we look to the future to leverage technology and deploy new, streamlined operating models. We can help you develop a creative vision, present the overall solution clearly and effectively to senior management, and then turn around and work the details with the rest of the organization.

Is this hard? Yes. We just don’t think we’re consistently lucky enough to do it any other way