Follow on 
In my role as a CEO coach I have the opportunity to work with some great leaders and see some of the best and quite honestly, some of the worst practices of leadership. In this particular case my client Park Howell, President of Park&Co Advertising Agency, understands the importance of story telling in leadership. Story telling is a great way to teach your team about the nuances of your culture. In this particular case Park uses an email to the entire staff and his favorite proverb to underscore the important of attention to detail. I’ll let you read the proverb and the email from Park below. This particular email and message did have an important impact on a client project two weeks after the email went out. One of Park’s staff members was getting ready to submit a proposal and Park’s email came to mind and they stopped and took even greater attention to detail before they turned in the proposal.
The email:
For Want of a Nail
For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.
Thank you for sweating the small stuff every day around here. This includes your exceptional work on proofreading, timely follow-up with clients, accuracy in billing, making printed materials perfect during press checks, insuring that each video edit is the right cut, that colors are pure, emails are concise, conference reports are clear, the kitchen is clean.
It will always be the small stuff that leads to our greatest challenges. Thanks for sweating them.
Park Howell
President
Congratulations Park! We could all learn something from this CEO highlight.