It is a truth as old as Time. If you want to be the best, the key rests in the details. The greatest across the ages all share the same rare trait not seen in the masses: they obsess over every detail of their craft, even the unseen.
Peter Drucker tells a story of the great Greek sculptor, Phidias, that illustrates an example of this:
[Phidias] was commissioned around 440 BC to make the statues that to this day stand on the roof of the Parthenon in Athens.
They are considered among the greatest sculptures of the Western tradition, but when Phidias submitted his bill, the city accountant of Athens refused to pay it.
‘These statues,’ the accountant said, ‘stand on the roof of the temple, and on the highest hill in Athens. Nobody can see anything but their fronts. Yet you have charged us for sculpting them in the round—that is, for doing their back sides, which nobody can see.’
‘You are wrong,’ Phidias retorted. ‘The gods can see them.’
I read this, as I remember, shortly after I had listened to Falstaff, and it hit me hard. I have not always lived up to it. I have done many things that I hope the gods will not notice, but I have always known that one has to strive for perfection even if only the gods notice.1
Two thousand years after Phidias, another considered the greatest of his age—the Renaissance sculptor and artist, Michelangelo—shared the same dedication to things unseen. Taking four years to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo agonized over every detail despite the fact that most of it would go unnoticed by those observing it from the ground. There is perhaps no greater example of this than his Libyan Sibyl.
As seen in the image above, Michelangelo took pains to sketch out the entire nude back of the Sibyl—ribs and all—during his preparatory process, even though most of it would be covered by clothes in the finished fresco.
In modern times, we see an example outside the arts in the genius of Steve Jobs, who carried the same devotion to unseen detail with him into the world of business. Doing things like rejecting the original logic boards inside of the Apple II because the “lines weren’t straight enough,” Jobs made it his mission to get every detail right, even those invisible to the user. And for that, like Phidias and Michelangelo before him, he is remembered as one of the greatest entrepreneurs of our age.
It is my contention, here, that for each of these individuals, their attention to the granular did not come after their success; it was what made their success inevitable. Their ability to stay in the microscopic long after others would have moved on is precisely what separated them from everybody else.
There’s a reason we say the “devil” is in the details. Because in the details is where we find that spirit of resistance that tries to get us to settle for less. It’s the voice that says you don’t need to worry about what that footnote says because nobody will read it. You don’t have to worry about the clarity of your code because nobody will ever look at it. You don’t have to finish all your reps or go the full distance in your workout because nobody will know the difference.
But that’s never entirely true, is it? Because there’s always at least one person—our Self—that’s watching. Even if it’s just us and our God, we will always know.
The greats know that and act accordingly. They know that, if the devil is in the details, then so is the divine. If we want to be the best, we must take pride in our ability to do the things that nobody else wants to do. We must not succumb to the seduction of shortcuts.
We must spend time with the details long after our desire to do so has expired. We must resist the temptation to gloss over the minutiae we think will go unnoticed. We must meet the devil in the details and defeat him there with the sword of careful attention.
If we can do that, then we can bet this: it’s only a matter of Time until an unexpected observer discovers the details we poured into that we thought would go unnoticed. It’s the maintenance man on the roof of the Parthenon; the cleaner that climbs a ladder to clear cobwebs and examines the ceiling of the Sistine chapel; the tech junkie that opens the inside of the Apple II, finds a breathtaking design, and announces it to the world.
It’s only a matter of Time until what we do in the dark one day comes to light. And the question we must all ask ourselves is this: will we be proud of what they find?
The internet says this was originally published in Drucker on Asia, but I can’t find the e-book available for purchase anywhere online to confirm before this post goes out.
“There’s a reason we say the “devil” is in the details. Because in the details is where we find that spirit of resistance that tries to get us to settle for less.“
What an awesome observation.