I have recently been bombarded by people talking about situations where people they work with are illustrating a lack of attention to detail. The sheer volume of problems brought to me recently cause me to wonder if there is something in the air causing behaviour shifts where people suddenly experience massive difficulty paying attention to details.

Sure, from time to time all of us experience problems paying attention to detail. This happens when we are overstressed. This happens when we are attempting to multi-task. And this can also happen when we are experiencing excessive interruptions while we are attempting to work.

However, this cannot or at the very least should not become a normal state of affairs. We cannot achieve business success if we cannot attend to details and perform with accuracy. Attention to detail is essential to successful performance of business tasks.

Putting two and two together, it certainly appears that many people and many businesses will not be successful…unless we can help them do better in the area of attention to detail.

So, how might we do that?

It's probably a good idea to start by asking questions. That's certainly better than assuming we know why the person is having difficulty paying attention to details.

We can ask a question like, “I notice this error - how do you think that happened?”

When we ask that question, we cannot accept an offhand answer. We cannot accept a shrug of the shoulders coupled with, “I don't know.” We cannot accept unclear excuses like, “I'm too busy.” We must make sure the answer has been thought through, at least to a degree.

Sort attention-to-detail problems into two categories:

1. The person has never had an ability or skill in the area of attention to detail. Under this category, we cannot expect any better performance than the person has illustrated in the past and we should not set attention-to-detail goals that are unachievable. Solution: people who have never exhibited attention-to-detail skill should not be doing work that relies on attention to detail.
2. The person has exhibited skill in the area of attention to detail but now those skills appear to have slipped away. In this case, something has happened to create a change. Solution: to remedy this problem we must understand what has happened. Who can answer that question? Likely, the person is in the best position answer the question. Make sure the person understands you are committed to understanding what’s happened. Ask the person. That’s the right place to start.

As you hear people answer your questions consider how you might help them improve attention-to-detail skills. For example, some thoughts...

• Consider the power generated by Napoleon Hill's advice: “Plan your work and work your plan” (‘Think and Grow Rich’, 1937). Embedded within this advice: schedules help us remember to do the right things at the right times. Doing the right thing at the right time promotes focus and concentration on that thing. Timing, focus, and concentration are the ingredients of attention-to-detail.

• Be Present - when struggling to concentrate, at the very least a person can pause and work at removing thoughts about the past and thoughts about the future. When we remove thoughts about the past and the future we are at least limited to thoughts about the present situation. That's a good step toward focus and concentration.

• Airline pilots confirm check-lists save lives - if check-lists work in the airline industry that proves check-lists have some value. And, what about medical teams in operating rooms. And what about shoppers in grocery stores. Check-lists have proven their value. People who choose to ignore check-lists are bucking a successful trend.

• Know how to say, “No” - this applies from small "No" to large "No", from saying "No" to co-worker interruptions to saying "No" to boss work-dumps.

• Don’t fight the fact you cannot multi-task and achieve meaningful success - multi-tasking is the route to mediocrity.