Faithful in Small Things

Do you pay attention to detail? Down to what level do you worry about details?

As an example, you are going to have lunch with a potential customer. Do you fret over where you will eat? Do you focus on which table you will be seated at and who will sit where? Have you asked about your guest’s drink preferences?

Have you scripted the conversation? Have you instructed the waitstaff only to attend your table when you signal? Have you arranged to pay the bill away from the table to avoid the uncomfortable issue of who picks up the check?

Or do you take a casual attitude, pick the first restaurant that comes to mind, and let the encounter with this potential new customer “just happen”?

It is so easy to get caught up in the big details. When meeting a new potential client, it is easy to start working on what they might hire you to do and forget that they need first to hire you. Most quality clients perform their due diligence first to make sure you are a fit. If you ignore this step, you will never get selected.

If you want to get selected, you need first to consider the small details. To what level you focus on details depends on your level of experience, your personality, and what you know about the potential client.

At a minimum, you need to worry about the things that will make the strongest relational impressions-the meeting place, the handshake/eye contact, and the attention to the conversation. All these need to demonstrate professionalism, competence, and that you value time.

The title of this blog started with the word “faithful” for a reason. The issue is not that you worry about small things, but that you are faithful to small things. The difference is significant. Most people can, when needed, focus on the small details that get things done. But often, these same people fall prey to the larger issues and only resort to the mundane details when they have to.

Faithful in small things represents a life-long understanding of the importance of small details. These people see a sporting event and understand it is the individual actions of each player that produced the game results. They see a dinner party and see all the small, well-thought-out details that make it a success. They see a building and see all the individual responsibilities that all had to be orchestrated to get the building designed, permitted, constructed, and opened.

Faithful means you can be counted on always to think of the details that will give whatever you are working on the best chance to succeed.

Luke 16:10 says.

One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much.

In Luke, Jesus is making a statement for our 21st-century audience. Too many employees want to be in charge of much right now without ever taking the time to demonstrate they can manage even the small details. Many younger employees have superior technical skills when compared to older workers, but technology doesn’t replace managerial and judgmental experience.

For business leaders today, the challenge is to give the younger workers the opportunity to gain experience in small details and to help them understand that with faithfulness in small thing comes the opportunity to be successful in bigger things.