Mr. Milliken, of course, is the president and CEO of a highly diversified privately owned international empire. I am the servant and caretaker of a tiny Methodist kingdom of the just called Wofford College. Shortly after assuming office, I was given to understand that I was expected to attend numerous weekend meetings, at which details of the new building would be discussed and decided upon. At an earlier stage of my career, I had been a writer-producer for public television, so I was familiar with the importance of details in any large project. But in television as in warfare, there is an urgency that requires quick and decisive judgments.
Time is money, and command and control decision-making is at a premium.
But gradually I observed that something unexpected was happening. After all the questioning and revisiting of what seemed to be relatively insignificant detail, a pattern of right decisions began to emerge, coalesce, and build into substantial improvements of the overall design. In time, I began to realize that it's not just that genius lies in the details, but that fussing over each of those details is the surest way of grasping what the whole can represent. And when you find yourself hard-pressed in a crisis, the habit of perfection is more likely to equip you with reliable instincts than reflexive haste will. Mr. Milliken was the first of my new-found teachers.