#Detail focused

Be involved in the details

Some companies have leaders who can lead people but are not very technical in their team's field. At Airbnb, leaders are not only experts in their field but are required to be fully involved in every detail of a project. This expectation includes CEO Brian Chesky, who reviews every company project weekly, bi-weekly, every four weeks, or eight weeks.

Brian explains, "People think that a great leader's job is to hire people and just empower them to do a good job. Well, how do you know they're doing a good job if you're not in the details?" But being in the details is not about micromanaging. Instead, it is about ensuring alignment and that everyone is "rowing in the same direction."

At first, this caused a lot more work for Airbnb's leaders, but within two years, Brian found himself less busy. Teams became aligned, resulting in fewer meetings, fewer conflicts, and less turnover. Brian explains, "Before, I would get ten surprises, and nine were bad. Now, I get ten surprises, and nine are good. And you don't really have to do anything about good surprises, only bad ones."

Sweat the details

At Apple, caring about the details is the only way to truly show that you care about the user's experience. Every person at Apple, starting with leadership, is expected to scrutinize over every detail of their division down to the pixel, spreadsheet cell, or line of code.

• Jobs once returned all of the phones at Apple headquarters because they weren't the right shade of ivory.
• Jobs spent months adjusting the colors, effects, and styling of just the red, yellow, and green buttons, in the Mac OS.
• Jobs also spent 450 hours preparing, adjusting, reworking, and practicing for the 22-minute presentation that introduced the Lion operating system.
• Designers scrutinized over finding the perfect type of rounded corner that would influence all Apple designs. They chose the squircle, a shape that every leader is expected to be able to identify on sight.
• Packaging designers opened and closed boxes for months, going through hundreds of iPod box prototypes.
• Designers tested an endless series of arrows, colors, and tapes when designing the sticker that adhered to the top of the iPod box.
• Leaders would inspect every pixel of every icon with a jewelry loupe.
• Leaders would read and rework every disclosure, terms of conditions, and agreement to make sure it had the right tone.
• Designers reworked the Apple pencil so that whenever it rolled it would stop with the logo facing up.

Pay attention to the small details

Whether it's lowering the height of espresso machines so customers can better connect with baristas or providing round tables so that coffee-drinkers flying solo didn't feel alone, all details matter to Starbucks. Store designers even work as baristas first to better understand what is needed by both employees and customers.

Starbucks also uses daily checklists to maintain a strict focus on the small details. They cover everything from cleaning counters to checking the café every 10 minutes. But these checklists also do something else: Free-up partners (employees) to get out from behind the counter, observe the store from the customer's perspective, and look for new ways to deliver extraordinary experiences.