On Being Thorough

This morning I want to talk to you about thoroughness; of being thorough in everything that we do. I look around, read different accounts in newspapers and magazines and so often they deal with some of the fiascos that happen around us, things that are happening that shouldn’t be happening and things that don’t happen but should be happening. We put them all down to people not being concerned with some of the details that need to be put into the things that we do.
The word ‘thorough’ is something that we often don’t pay too much attention to. And yet I think that it is such an important word that it must be part of our vocabulary. And more than vocabulary, it needs to be part of our character.

I remember reading a humorous article about a woman who was cheering Europe. She cabled the following message to her husband and said, “Have found wonderful bracelet priced $75,000/- may I buy it?” Her husband immediately responded with a message. “No, price too high.” However the telegraph operator missed one small detail in his transmission, the symbol for the comma after the word no. So the wife in Europe received in reply, “No price too high.” Elated by the good news, she bought the bracelet. But when she returned to the United States and showed the new bracelet to her shocked husband, he filed a lawsuit against the telegraph company and he won. And from that time on, telegraph rules required operators to spell out punctuation rather than use symbols. No price was too high to avoid the same mistake.

Attention to details! What exactly is thoroughness? How do we define it?

The Webster’s Dictionary gives us a definition that has 3 qualities about it.

1. It is a quality of completeness.
2. Not overlooking important details.
3. Exhaustive in fulfilling a task.

Basically when you talk about completing, it is the start and finish strong. That is the goal, not just the start but also to be able to finish and any method that ignores vital steps along the way to the finish is incomplete.

Let’s just look at Noah Webster himself who put the American dictionary together. It is said that he broke down his project into steps. He began by compiling a list of words to define. Then he focused on reading to identify how words were being used before finalizing their definitions. When Noah Webster was 43, he began writing the dictionary. It took him more than 27 years to complete his work. But sometime after he began forming the definitions, this lexicographer discovered the need for a step he had overlooked in his initial plan. What was the step? He realized that in order to properly communicate the meaning of current words, he needed to understand the way each word has evolved through history. So, setting aside his initial production schedule, Webster devoted several years to studying the development of English vocabulary. He traced each word on his list back to the French, Latin, German or other linguistic origins. This study of etymology was itself so consuming that Webster compiled his research intof a sizable volume entitled ‘A Synopsis of Words’ in 20 languages. When the word etymology was finally carefully researched, Webster was ready to return to composing definitions.

Thoroughness took him 27 years to complete his entire project. When your plan is interrupted by an unexpected obstacle or you discover something is missing, thoroughness is expending the necessary effort to truly resolve the difficulty.

Thoroughness must be exercised with the complementary quality of diligence. And diligence is investing my time and energy to complete each task assigned to me. And balance thoroughness with diligence therefore in order to complete the task. You and I know that. We can get so caught up in details that we forget the big picture. I often do that when I am doing research. When I am planning a presentation I get so deeply involved. I have all the little things in front of me and sometimes I just step away from it and say, “What’s the big picture?” The small details always must fit into the big picture.

And that’s the balance that we need to bring into thoroughness. But as we look at the definition, the quality of completeness, not overlooking important details.

About 1000 A.D. the adjective thorough meant ‘from side to side, from end to end’. In his extensive etymological research for the dictionary, Noah Webster discovered that the modern words door and thorough actually came from the same linguistic root; a root referring to a passage or a hole. In essence the idea of thoroughness is totality and totality can be measured in terms of total inclusion i.e. everything is covered from end to end or it can be measured in terms of total conclusion – the package all the way from start to finish. The key is to be able to complete, to be able to take into consideration the details.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “He that despiseth small things will perish little by little.”

Howard W. Newton said “People forget how fast you did a job; but they remember how well you did it.”

Thoroughness needs balance. We need to be able to see the big picture. We need to be able to complete a work and then take care of the fine details along the way that go to make this an excellent job. We must be exhaustive in fulfilling the task.

Eric Hollnagel who wrote the book ‘The ETTO Principle” basically says that the ETTO Principle means Efficiency-Thoroughness Trade Off. He says, “It’s important that we notice that always the balance is being efficient and being thorough. Sometimes we pull back on thoroughness because we need to be efficient and sometimes we pull back on efficiency because we need to be thorough. There must be a balance, because there always nearly is too little time and too much information relative to what needs to be done. It is inevitable that what we do will be a compromise between what we must do in order not to be left behind and what we should do in order to avoid unnecessary risks. In other words, a compromise or trade-off between efficiency and thoroughness.”

I would prefer to use the word balance rather than compromise. We need to find the balance between being efficient and being thorough. If we put those 2 words together, we can be thoroughly efficient in all that we do if we have the right kind of balance. And that, I believe, is something that all of us in the market place or wherever we are, are called to have; a good balance between being thorough, being diligent and being efficient.

Charles (Chuck) Swindoll is an author that I love to read and he quotes the book of Proverbs 13:4. “The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing; but the soul of the diligent is made fat.” In another Proverb, “The sluggard longingly craves but because he is allergic to work, he gets nothing in return.”

So, what are we waiting for?

We need to stop being satisfied with half-hearted incomplete job. Swindoll finishes this in his book ’The Finishing Touch’. He says, “The difference between something good and something great is attention to detail. That’s true of a delicious meal, a musical production, a play, a new automobile, a well-kept home, a church, our attire, our business, a lovely garden, a sermon, a teacher, a well-disciplined family, our work place, and our work situations, all that’s around us.”

How about making a long-term commitment this morning to thoroughness in our lives? Making sure that it becomes a character trait for each one of us. That we can look at the things we do and say, “This is not just great, it’s excellent.” I am ready for that kind of a challenge. I hope you are too.

God Bless You All.