The Little Things: How Leaders Make the Big Things Happen
“Uniformity is the spice of life.” — Drill Sergeant Ploth, Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, 1991
Talk to anybody who’s experienced the thrill of US military basic training and you’ll inevitably hear some reference to making your bed. “My bunk was made so tight that you could bounce a quarter on it!” It’s been 30 years since my basic training experience at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, and I can still remember every detail of making my bunk. Two crisp white sheets, a pillow, pillowcase, and an OD green wool blanket. A twin mattress on a metal bunk frame.
Sure. I’d made my bed before entering the Army, but that was different. I only did it if Mom or Dad told me to. And that was only if we were having company. But in the Army, I was TRAINED to make my bed. Yep. One of the very first training experiences at what is officially called “basic COMBAT training” was a block of instruction on how to make a bunk. Sheets and blanket make a 45-degree angle at the corners. Blanket rolled back neatly to a specific length at the top to expose the sheets. And everything pulled tight under the mattress just right. Do it enough times and you really get the hang of it. There’s a technique to get everything perfect. The secret is in using the bunk springs under the mattress to lock the sheets and blanket in tight. So, when it’s done and you scramble out of the barracks into the damp morning air for physical training you can’t help but think, “Wow…that’s an awarding winning bunk!”
But what in the world did making a bunk have to do with combat training? That wasn’t the only thing that didn’t make a lot of sense. Why did we all have to wear the same uniform? Better yet, why did we have to wear the uniform the same way? During more than two decades of service, I must admit that I never felt the earth stop rotating if a soldier was “out of uniform.” The sky didn’t fall if a soldier didn’t make her bed properly. Nope. Not even if a soldier let his hair get too long. So why bother with those things? Why bother with the little things? The answer lies in another thing that I learned. The little things make the big things happen. In fact, the little things are likely predictors of whether or not the big things will happen.
When Drill Sergeant Ploth trained me and my teammates to make our bunks, the training had almost nothing to do with with the bunk per se. The bunk was simply a platform to instill something more important. When the drill sergeants corrected us for failing to wear our uniforms correctly, it had almost nothing to do with the uniform. To be sure, wearing the uniform properly would prevent sunburns and serve many other useful purposes, but the uniform was also a platform used to instill something more important. Making a bunk or wearing the uniform correctly was more about demonstrating the ability to execute a simple task with skill and precision than it was about how much anybody cared about our neatness. It was about attention to detail. It was about functional discipline and the ability to perform against a known standard.
Our leaders understood something that my peers and I could not fully appreciate at the time. They understood that for us to excel in highly competitive environments we would have to execute essential tasks with precision. In our case, that meant survival on the battlefield. And to that end, our leaders used every platform available to reinforce task completion against a known standard. From the second we woke up until the second we fell asleep we were completing tasks. And we were held accountable for completing those tasks with a high degree of precision. Attention to detail became a way of life rooted in the little things. Because the little things make the big things happen. There were dozens of little things to accomplish each day. Dozens of small tasks in which to apply attention to detail and rehearse the function of discipline. They were just little things, but they helped establish a mindset that directly related to the big things. And the big things just might be a matter of life or death.
During my military career, I grew to increasingly appreciate the little things. In fact, I found them very valuable when assessing junior leaders. Not only was there an endless supply of little things to assess, the little things were largely observable. They served as tangible reflections of a leader’s frame of mind as it related to his or her ability to apply attention to detail. It also demonstrated the leader’s competence level. For example, the young leader who could not lead a squad through a simple set of prescribed stretching drills before physical training was often the same leader who could not lead his squad to successfully “enter a building and clear a room” during combat training. This same leader was also likely to have unserviceable equipment and low personnel administrative readiness. This pattern remained true in actual combat environments. Leaders who did not know how to properly complete or enforce the little things struggled to accomplish the big things. The soldiers, leaders, and teams that were sloppy and ill-disciplined at home-station were just as sloppy and ill-disciplined in combat environments; without fail. Sadly, we lost soldiers as the result of leaders failing to enforce the little things.
Think about the environment in which you lead.
What platforms or built in “little things” do you have at your disposal to help instill the mindset of excellence and the attention to detail required to thrive in the highly competitive environment in which your team operates? When the big moments come, will you feel confident that your team is mentally equipped and prepared to apply the attention to detail necessary to excel?
Laying down a bunt effectively might just be the difference between a silent bus ride home and a National Championship. That’s a big thing.
Getting the guest’s food order right or not could be the difference between a customer for life and a bad public review. That’s a big thing.
Finishing the trim around those doors without flaw might just be the difference between layoffs and a future million-dollar contract. That’s a big thing.
Winning…the big thing…doesn’t happen by accident. Winning is the result of your appreciation for the little things. Use all of them to your team’s advantage.
