Leadership and Control

Translated by Google Translate

Therein Lies the Detail

It was 1999, and I held the position of divisional marketing manager, my first experience with real responsibility over a work team composed of five people, including myself. At the company, we conducted three business reviews a year, a very common practice at that time. And since it was a multinational company, we usually had to travel outside the country every four months to present the results obtained.

At that time, we didn't have the technology that currently makes everything easier; we didn't have laptops or specialized presentation software. The transparent acetate was king, and the projector was an indispensable tool. Therefore, on each trip, we had to be accompanied by two suitcases, one with our personal items and another to carry two or three binders with approximately 300 acetates detailing every minute aspect of our management during that period. There was no room for doubt; we had to go a step further and have all the answers to possible questions that could arise during our presentation on these small transparent sheets.

Years later, we live in a different world. Not only did the pandemic change the way we work, eliminating a large part of travel and in-person meetings, but we also have digital tools that have allowed us to dispense with and leave behind old technologies such as acetates, floppy disks, cassettes, and even USB drives.

Unfortunately, what hasn't changed in many organizations and managers is the need to know absolutely everything and expect everyone in their organization to know it, developing a bureaucratic leadership where ultimately all decisions must reach the highest level to be made. Some time ago, this was called micromanagement, a word and behavior that everyone began to avoid. Over time, in my opinion, it was given another name to avoid falling or being pigeonholed into that stigma. That's why now there is talk of attention to detail, a skill that many today include in their job descriptions for managerial and leadership positions.

What is attention to detail? According to some definitions, it is our ability to find relevant information within a large amount of data. Definitely a necessary skill in the information age we live in today. However, the question we must ask ourselves is, who should deploy this skill and to what extent? For me, it should be the person responsible for and the owner of the function who has this clarity and focus. For example, an executive managing a commercial account must have those details to extract relevant information and do their job.

The leader's role is not to know all the details of each account and be aware of everything; their role is to ensure that the executive reaches their maximum potential so that they can obtain the best results. However, we continue to see situations where long and detailed reports are requested with a frequency that sometimes seems absurd, so that senior management always has detailed information and, as they want to believe, has control. Complex spreadsheets with a large amount of data that consume time to fill out are also still being developed, just for the interest of senior management in having all the information, tools that generate little value and are often not even reviewed.

It is clear that metrics are fundamental, because what is not measured is not achieved, but having metrics in a simple system to track them is very different from wanting to have extensive reports of absolutely everything just to satisfy an unnecessary need for control. It's like going on a diet to lose weight; it's clear that we need to weigh ourselves to have a metric, but what we don't need is to pass a daily report to our trainer and have them constantly asking why we are not losing weight at the desired rate.

Wanting to be aware of everything and have control of all situations is, perhaps, the first leadership failure, because it denotes a lack of trust in the people we work with. Excesses of control, in my opinion and experience, have a significant impact on organizations. First, they make them bureaucratic, undermining their ability to seize opportunities agilely in times when speed is essential. Second, they generate unnecessary expenses and costs, not only for the resources consumed but also for the time it takes people to develop activities that often do not add value. Third, and perhaps most importantly, when we want to control everything, we don't give people space to fail, learn, and develop. The long-term impact of this is much greater than we can sometimes imagine, creating organizations without successors and also inappropriate work environments.

Therein lies the detail! This was one of the most famous phrases of Cantinflas, the great comic character of Mario Moreno who sometimes spoke nonsensically and with that touch of humor. This phrase, which is also the title of one of his first films, summarizes a great truth: Yes, we have to look for the detail, the one that allows us to define the best strategy and the best plan of action. But the detail also lies in ceasing to control everything, letting people and teams work, trusting them, and allowing them to fail and develop.

As leaders, the most important thing is not to question, "Why is this happening?" but rather to ask, "How can I help you solve it?" The objective is not to know everything, but to know how we can support and inspire people to be autonomous, reach their maximum potential, and achieve personal, professional, and corporate success.