“Get the Stupid Stuff Right” – Nic Pizzolatto (True Detective) is Great at This

Checklists can provide protection against elementary errors. 
You want people to get the stupid stuff right.  Yet you also want to leave room for craft and judgment and the ability to respond to unexpected difficulties that arise along the way.  The value of checklists for simple problems seems self-evident.  But can they help avert failure when the problems combine everything from the simple to the complex?
Atul Gawande, The Checklist Manifesto:  How to Get Things Right (emphasis added)

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I’m ready to make a pronouncement.  Most failures are because someone forgets to get the stupid stuff right.

You can call this what you want.  The “basics,” the “fundamentals.”  In today’s “snarky” environment, we use the word “stupid.”  You know, the “How to _______ for Dummies” era.  Well, we are all pretty much dummies, and we all forget to get the stupid stuff right.

The True Detectives at Work

I thought of this as I read this terrific interview with Nic Pizzolatto, the showrunner for True Detective:  Inside the Obsessive, Strange Mind of True Detective’s Nic Pizzolatto by Andrew Romano, from The Daily Beast.  I’ve caught the first three episodes, and can’t wait to see the rest.  It does feel different!

Here’s the paragraph that grabbed me (emphasis added):

And the auteur-anthology format—one writer, one director, two movie stars, and one story per season, with a beginning, middle, and end—could be revolutionary. As I wrote last month, “not every narrative is best created by committee or best told as an open-ended epic. … For a certain kind of plot-centric series, the True Detective model could alleviate some of television’s muddling structural issues and liberate showrunners to take full advantage of the medium’s greatest asset: time. Some characters deserve eight hours on screen. In a theater, you can’t do that. On TV, you can.”

Nic Pizzolatto, True Detective showrunner

Notice:  “One story.  With a beginning, middle, and end.  Could be revolutionary.”

Well, duh…  That’s pretty “stupid.”  But when the stupid stuff is done right, it feels better, different, brilliant…  revolutionary.

The ripple effects of this are good – in every arena.  I’ve read business books for decades, and presented synopses of many of them for nearly 16 full years.  You know what?  There is not all that much new in the best books.  The best books remind us all of the basics, the “stupid stuff,” over and over again.  Like:

Build good teams
Have a clear strategy
Hire the right people
Nurture, train, develop your people
Fix your mistakes
Aim for constant improvement
Keep innovating
Communicate clearly
Get rid of those silos…

The best leaders, the best organizations, get most of these “stupid” things right.

Pete Carroll at work

After the Seahawks dismantled the Broncos, I keep thinking about Pete Carroll.  Seems to me that the Seattle Seahawks got the stupid stuff right (along with some very smart stuff). They had a great game plan.  They executed.  But, have you watched Pete Carroll in action?  This guy knows how to invest in, encourage, nurture, have fun with his players.  After the game, as Coach Carroll was mobbed, he literally said, “I’ve got to get to my team.”   His first thought was to be with his team!

That’s getting the stupid stuff right!

What about you?  What about your organization?  Are you getting the stupid stuff right?  If not, it’s time for you to!

If you don’t get the stupid stuff right, you’re pretty much toast…