Leaders must do something about it...

• When they notice their people are under-performing
• When they find their people are making an unusually high amount of errors in their work 
• When they sense their people are just going through the motions 
• When they know their people's work quality is substandard
• When they see their people aren't providing their best effort 
• When they see their people showing disregard for the rules 
• When they hear their people bickering back-and-forth, criticizing one another 
• When they learn their clients are complaining about products or services

Some people are happy performing the routine day-to-day things of life. Other people yearn for more.

About those who yearn for more…

Some people yearn for new things and more success and they continuously work away at achieving greater things.

Other people yearn for more and yet continue to do the same old things…over and over…including complaining about setbacks at every opportunity. 

These people are the ‘achievers’, some with good habits and some with not-so-good habits. Their habits 'dictate' whether or not they are acting in successful or unsuccessful ways.

About those who are happy performing the routine day-to-day things in life…

I have met a few. I marvelled at their enthusiasm as they described the enjoyment they experienced working on a Ford assembly line, serving diners in restaurants, and doing other work laced with repetition.

Most people who work in roles containing a heavy dose of routine tasks are not happy about their ‘predicament’. They either yearn for more from work or they seem to have accepted their unhappy lot in life. Many people exhibit this unhappiness, sharing it regularly with others. So, the few who are truly happy with routine work really stand out.

About the extremes…

People who are happy performing routine day-to-day work are at one extreme. People who yearn for more and continuously work away at achieving more are at the other extreme. These people at the extremes accomplish excellent things at work, albeit in very different ways. And they influence the people they work with in very different ways. 

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.