ATTENTION TO DETAIL 101

What works is better than what looks good. The looks good can change, but what works, works.

Ray-Bernice Alexandra Kaiser Eames (1912—1988) was an American artist, designer, and filmmaker. In creative partnership with her spouse Charles Eames and the Eames Office, she was responsible for groundbreaking contributions in the field of architecture, furniture design, industrial design, manufacturing, and the photographic arts.

Ray was rarely discussed or interviewed separately from her husband, but she was an equal partner in their creations. Charles was always eager to acknowledge her integral role, saying in an interview, “Anything I can do, Ray can do better.” But her recognition was slow to come. Ray was frequently forgotten or dismissed as her husband’s assistant.

Ray had an exceptional visual acuity and memory. Her obsessive attention to every last detail in the choice of color, material, or even the basic form of a piece of furniture led to the pleasing overall result. Ray adored found objects of all kinds, and she lovingly collected items for display, arranging them in a room or an exhibition in such a way that they created a special visual effect. As a grandchild, Eames observed their house, "it was more than a home; it was a laboratory of creative thinking."

Together, their work was about the sum of their parts, and always about finding smarter ways of doing things. Charles and Ray believed that when you truly try to address the fundamental need of any situation, the best solution will come to the fore. That means paying attention to the unsexy details. For the Eames, it meant refining chair feet, over the course of 6 years.

The husband-and-wife team of Charles and Ray Eames were America's most influential and important industrial designers. Admired for their creations and fascinating as individuals, they have risen to iconic status in American culture.

ATTENTION TO DETAIL 101

Attention to detail is the ability to focus attention on problem-solving toward a thorough and accurate outcome—regardless of the task.

Several skills contribute to stronger attention to detail, such as analytical skills, observational skills, and listening skills.

Obsessing the details move us from better solutions to the best solutions. What most articles miss about attention to detail is that we have to care about the problems we are solving.

Caring begins with proximity to a particular problem. It's in the proximity to specific problems we care about that we hear things that we won't otherwise hear, that we'll see something we won't otherwise see. The things we hear and see are critical to our knowledge and our capacity to problem-solve.

There are many lenses we can adopt for effective problem-solving. We can be competitor-focused, we can be product-focused, we can be technology-focused, we can be business model-focused, and there are more. Amazon has proven success through customer focus.

Regardless of the lens, obsession with the details of that perspective is critical. For example, the nuances of the customer-centric lens include details such as:

the ongoing nature of customer dissatisfaction; even happy customers want something better
the desire to delight customers drives innovation and invention on their behalf
empathizing with a customer’s first impressions (a Day-1 mindset) trains us to experiment patiently, accept failures, plant seeds, protect saplings, and notice customer delight

How do we gain proximity to get better acquainted with the details?

PRACTICE

Effective problem-solving depends on the success of close collaborations among diverse thinkers. From there, we generate ideas, experiment with new methods that may offer possibilities for significant improvement—and we learn.

Identify a problem you cannot walk away from, something that really sits in the back of your mind and just won’t leave.
Identify the characters of the problem. For instance, in the example above there’s the customer and how the customer uses a product or solution. If we are solving problems in other domains like education, climate change, recidivism, etc.—then who is impacted by those issues?
What do they experience? Think through their experience. Interview them if you can (gain proximity to the issue).
Develop a working hypothesis.
Identify 2-3 ways you can put your knowledge to the test. What prototypes, experiments, or approaches can you try to begin to chip away at this problem?
How will you share your learnings? How will you apply your learning to re-evaluating your current approach?
Reframe the problem and repeat the process.

COMMIT

[ ] I commit myself to paying attention to the details by gaining proximity to problems I care about, and putting my knowledge to the test.

FURTHER READING/ WATCHING

Ray Eames, Out of Her Husband’s Shadow: (The Mrs. Files via the NYTimes looks at history through a contemporary lens to see what the honorific “Mrs.” means to women and their identity.) The designer let her larger-than-life husband Charles do the talking. But the style symbolized by their shared name was a joint creation.

Eames Architect Artist Documentary Charles Ormond Eames, Jr /ˈiːmz/ (1907–1978) and Bernice Alexandra "Ray" Kaiser Eames (1912–1988) were husband and wife American designers who made significant historical contributions to the development of modern architecture and furniture. Among their most well-known designs is the Eames Lounge Chair. They also worked in the fields of industrial and graphic design, fine art, and film.

The Work of Charles and Ray Eames: A Legacy of Invention: Charles and Ray Eames gave shape to America's 20th century. From the 1940s to the late 1970s, the Los Angeles-based husband-and-wife team designed furniture, buildings, toys, films, graphics, exhibitions, and books that aimed to improve society--not only functionally, but culturally and intellectually as well. This title includes six generously illustrated essays that examine the couple's projects in the contexts of science, corporate patronage, politics, and modern design. 200 illustration, 150 in full color.

The Eames House was the Eames’ most famous architecture project and was constructed in the late ’40s. It was built on a picturesque bluff in Los Angeles and is comprised of a living space and a smaller studio space. The home is the perfect combination of good design and livability, demonstrating the beauty of form and function like nothing else.

In her words…

“What works is better than what looks good. The looks good can change, but what works, works.”

The following quotes are often attributed to both Ray and her husband Charles, and taken from The Work of Charles and Ray Eames: A Legacy of Invention:

“The details are the details. They make the product. The connections, the connections, the connections. It will, in the end, be these details that give the product its life.”

“We work because it’s a chain reaction: each subject leads to the next.”

“Recognizing the need is the primary condition for design.”

“What works good is better than what looks good, because what works good lasts.”

“The most important thing is that you love what you are doing, and the second that you are not afraid of where your next idea will lead.”

"The role of the designer is basically that of a good host, anticipating the needs of the guest."

"The connections, the connections, the connections," Charles Eames once said. "It will, in the end, be these details that give the product its life."

“We don’t do ‘art’ – we solve problems.”

What we don’t see on the resumes we review or the job descriptions we want is the litany of emotional entanglements we bring to our roles, uninvited, to the team and organizations we work in. Alongside technical skills, people who can master a range of subjective skills are better able to influence, deal with ambiguity, bounce back from setbacks, think creatively, and manage themselves in the presence of setbacks. In short, those who learn lead.

Observing subjective qualities in others past and present gives us a mental picture for the behaviors we want to practice. Each figure illustrates a quality researched from The Look to Craftsmen Project. When practiced as part of our day-to-day, these qualities will help us develop our mastery in our lives and work.