A friend once told me about a very frustrating meeting she had to sit through. The team she was on was tasked with creating an important internal PR piece for her company. The print piece needed to explain to all of the companies 500+ employees some new changes that were coming to their health benefits and retirement packages. It was a big deal b/c some of the changes were not going to be so good. So my friend sat around a table with a graphic designer, two other colleagues from the PR dept, the head of HR and 4, count em, 4 VPs.
After an overview of the new changes, the head of HR suggested a clever tagline for the cover of print piece. My friend thought it was brilliant. Then it happened. One of the VPs piped up and said “That’s great. However, that third word…yeah it needs to be capitalized.”
One of the other VPs sat forward and said “No I don’t think it does. That would be a mistake.”
To which the first one said “I beg to differ. It does need to be capitalized.”
My friend said that this went on. For three solid hours. It got very heated. People were called, websites checked…round and round. After three hours, all 3 VPs were calling each other names, the head of HR was making notes for a report, the graphic designer was watching something on Netflix and the three from PR were sitting in absolute disbelief.
Upper case…lower case. Majoring on a minor. It’s what makes companies stall and some churches stale and some families sink. Desk name plates, carpet color, song selection, hair styles, titles, thee vs. you, A+ vs. A-, …upper case or lower case?! Majoring on minors. I think its what we do when we get bored or full of ourselves. It’s like we have nothing better to do than to examine, reexamine and then rereexamine. “Hey look guys, I found a little tiny issue. It’s probably nothing, but since we have nothing better to do, let’s make it a huge deal!” Minor majoring is a sure way to bring progress to a screeching halt. It’s the wet blanket on the creative process. It’s a long boring road trip in a windowless van.
I don’t want to waste time arguing over a capital letter. I want to have the discernment to distinguish between a major and a minor in life. I want to have grace for the lower case, but be willing to fight for things that truly matter. Jesus had that. He didn’t bother with the petty. He would have probably walked quietly out of that meeting and did something of significance. Pharisees split hairs over words and measured out to the gram the tithe of their herb gardens. Jesus said all that was upper case/lower case. Jesus said they ignored the major things like justice, mercy and faithfulness.
How about you? Do you find yourself fighting for a capital Q when you should be loving your neighbor?
Kelly- Great post. Good lesson.
I struggle with this one often because on the one hand you shouldn’t major on minors and on the other hand we use a phrase around Blue Ocean Ideas that “Everything Matters” down to the tiny pixel that shadows a box on a website. Or the words in the copy of an ad.
I think of this often with Apple (you and I are both big fans). The reason we like them SO much is that they care about the many little details that make their products a joy to use. Other PC’s do basically everything you can do with a Mac but none of them do it with the attention to detail that matters so much.
So I think I’m learning that details are SO important but they have to be the right details. Obviously the capitalization of one letter can be that important. But the font size and line spacing might be crucial to the piece communicating well.
Thanks for writing, I always enjoy it!
Peace,
Greg