Teaching someone to be detail-oriented?

[Geoff Hart <Geoff-h -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA>]

Jill Burgchardt wondered <<Can someone learn to be detail-
oriented? The other tech writer here just moved on to another
job. Nice person, but not detail-oriented... The hope is that
they can prevent a recurrence of past problems by providing
more direct management/training.>>

I learned to edit in exactly that manner; I suspect I already
had the basic detail-oriented personality, but my
manager/mentor taught me the art of editing by reviewing
what I did and day by day, teaching me what details to look
out for. I fully learned one new detail each day or week or
whatever by practicing that detail until it became second
nature. (Some details came faster, others took longer, and
some details came in groups, but the basic principle is that if
you can learn one new thing per week, you can learn 52 per
year, and that's nothing to sneeze at.)

<<So, can it be learned or is it a personality trait that you
either have or don't have?>>

Depends entirely on the person. Some people will simply
never learn to focus on the details; others simply need a bit of
time, patience, and training. No way to know until you've
actually begun work with the person.

--Geoff Hart @8^{)}     Pointe-Claire, Quebec
geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca

"Perhaps there is something deep and profound behind all those sevens,
something just calling out for us to discover it. But I
suspect that it is only a pernicious, Pythagorean coincidence." George
Miller, "The Magical Number Seven" (1956)

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