Some people are happy performing the routine day-to-day things in life, including routine work. Other people yearn for more variety in their work.

The people who yearn for more variety tend to talk about their desires. The people who are satisfied with the status tend to talk less. When desires are communicated, each type of person tends to discount or shrug off the desires of the other.

People who are happy performing routine day-to-day work tend to resist change and oppose innovation. People who seek more variety tend to be curious and inventive. When ideas are discussed, each type of person has difficulty understanding the views of the other.

And worse, these opposing views about the value of routine and not-routine work often generate never-ending problems. These problems can cause businesses to sputter, stall, and become entrenched in poor performance.

Perhaps, these fundamental differences are responsible for most business failures?

Certainly, these fundamental differences are the root cause of many interpersonal clashes. Interpersonal clashes eat up energy, demotivate, and in some cases lead to business failures.

About eating up energy…

People energize one another. One good example is the thing we call team spirit. Team spirit exists when people are like-minded and share a drive to succeed. When team spirit is present, ‘mutual-motivation’ leads to harmonious thought and action, which cause positive momentum to build and teams to do better.

People eat up one another’s energy. Examples range from co-workers who visit with interruptions to discourteous sales clerks to road rage. People are prone to mirror other’s behaviour: road rage is contagious. People are prone to react negatively when others behave negatively: fight and flight reactions are part of our genetic make-up.

We have 2 choices:

1. We can eat up one another’s energy…leaving insufficient energy to do productive work.
2. We can energize one another…building energy to expand productive work.

The choice is clear.

People need to understand their differences. People need to communicate about their differences. People need to buy into shared goals.

People need to help one another satisfy different needs.

Using better communication, people need to figure out ways to accomplish both routine and not-routine work. 

First of all, is that a pertinent question? If you don't notice that you're missing details or confusing details then perhaps there is no need to improve your attention to detail. If other people are not pointing out attention-to-details errors and blaming you for them, perhaps you don't need to worry about improving your attention to detail. On the other hand, if you are noticing you are making attention-to-detail errors or if other people are telling you you're making attention-to-detail errors then perhaps you need to spend a little time to figure out how to improve your performance.

It makes sense that the first step should be to objectively analyze your own performance and consider, as objectively as you can, what other people are saying about your performance. Determine whether or not you have an attention to detail problem.

Should you determine that you do have an attention to detail problem and that you truly are interested in improving to reduce that problem then a good first step is to "get present".

Getting present is a way of determining whether or not you have the ability to focus on the here and now, rather than worrying about things from the past or the future, and whether or not you have the ability to focus and concentrate on the single task.

For many, if not most people, truly focusing on a single task is a very difficult thing to do. Many diverse and virtually uncontrollable thoughts pass through your mind on a repeated basis. It is very difficult for most people to filter out those random thoughts and focus on a single item or task. Many people have trouble concentrating thought, effort, and action on more than a single task. For this reason, most experts on performance improvement will tell you to refrain from multi-tasking. Concentrate on single things to the full extent that's possible. Avoid distractions and interruptions.  As you work to concentrate on a single task you will notice when your ability to concentrate is wavering. Also, you will be able to quickly tell when you are experiencing wayward thoughts not related to the task. The more frequently those thoughts arrive the less your ability to concentrate.

Wayward thoughts are signals you can tune into in order to help you understand whether or not you are actually succeeding at paying attention to details.

Here's a twist on the I'm-too-busy mindset.

In the past I challenged people to stop thinking and saying, “I'm too busy”.

Now, I'm suggesting they ought to keep their eyes open for others who complain they're too busy.  Those too-busy people provide sales and service opportunities.  

The challenge is to escape one’s own too-busy mindset long enough to observe other too-busy people and work to understand the wants and needs of those other too-busy people.

Now, if you are too busy to take the time to identify other too-busy people then this sales and serviced strategy will not work for you. And, the question is - If this sales and service strategy will not work for you then what sales and service strategy will?