10 Ways to Reconnect with the Big Picture
Leaders who forget the big picture end up lost in the weeds. Without perspective, urgencies prevail.
Getting things done gets in the way, when it’s time to see the big picture.
Successful leaders work on the way work gets done.
5 reasons the big picture matters:
The big picture:
- Reminds you of the importance of others. You can’t get there alone.
- Provides focus and direction.
- Gives meaning to details.
- Explains success and failure. The big picture lifts leaders out of the weeds.
- Enables course correction.
Seeing the big picture includes observing, describing, and working on relationships processes, and procedures.
10 ways to reconnect with the big picture:
- Manage by wandering around. Your office is the enemy of seeing the big picture.
- Disengage from what needs to be done. Observe what is being done.
- Take yourself out of the equation. Assign your role to someone else for an hour, day, or longer if possible. Observe people in action.
- See what happens when you stop telling people what to do.
- Slip to the side when people are interacting. Watch.
- Stop thinking about how things are supposed to be done. Judging prevents open observation. Accept things as they are, not as you wish they were. Stop thinking about changing things, at least momentarily.
- Ask an outside to observe and describe your organization. Choose someone:
- With candor.
- Without an agenda.
- With the ability to describe. You don’t need explanations. You need descriptions.
- Explore, don’t contest, their descriptions.
- Ask yourself, “What’s making things easy/difficult?” Better yet, ask yourself, “Who is making things easy/difficult?”
- Create handwritten profiles of key people and how they add value or block progress.
- Schedule “big picture” time, at least once a week.
What happens when leaders lose sight of the big picture?
How might leaders see the big picture?
I love this post Dan. Number 7 is brilliant! Reading your posts on my way in every morning inspires me for the day ahead!
Thanks Sarah. It’s a privilege to be part of your journey.
Dear Dan,
A thought-provoking post! Leaders get lost of a big sight when they are more concerned about operations part and its control. Ideally, this is to be given in the safe hands of key managers who are more efficient in managing things with better man management and logistics skills. They can be given a free hand for executing the plans for achieving and surpassing the pre-set goals. Leaders, on the other hand, should focus on futuristic developments likely to be there in the domestic and global fronts and preparing the organization with adequate resources [investment decisions].
Leaders have a strategic role of having a good vision for the future and the basic will of succeeding at speed with right innovation in the global market. They need to work on identifying future leaders and assigning them with newer challenging tasks to fulfill their vision. Hiring right good talents at the senior level is also a big responsibility of successful leaders. Branding the organization the right way to attract potential big partners to align and succeed jointly can be an another focused area of concentration for the leaders.
Thank you Dr.Asher. The thing that really popped for me is the suggestion that controlling things is a roadblock to seeing the big picture. I’m adding that to the list that includes focusing on details and execution.
Agreed, great addition to the original posting. Another version, a really good version, of the difference between leaders and managers.
Quarterly profits and stock value blinds many public company leaders to the real big picture. Hint: It ain’t the stockholders’ money purses.
Thanks James. Publicly trade companies require leaders who can navigate tensions between long and short-term perspectives. You hint at the idea that stockholders aren’t the only factor in making decisions. 🙂
Dan, I think most of us have a natural tendency towards either the big, overall picture or the small, more detailed picture, with varying degrees inbetween. I’m a keen photographer and looking through the lens really emphasises the difference between the two. Wide angle…you get those broad, sweeping landscapes, use a macro lens and you get all that detail of a very small thing and it becomes larger than life. If you know where your natural pull it, this you can pull yourself the oppositie direction to achieve a level of balance.
I personally can get too bogged down in detail and need to remind myself that the big widde world is out there…or someone else does.
Thanks Rowena. Your insights are helpful. I find the detail people tend to be better at getting things done. The big picture is easy for me. I’ve learned to embrace my detail oriented colleagues.
Good morning Dan
There was a time when I hated hearing the statement, “Don’t forget to concider THE BIG PICTURE”, then I grew-up, matured a bit, and began to learn what it takes to be a ‘True’ Leader in every sence of the word.
When we purposelly concider the ‘BIG-PICTURE’, we actomatically concider the views and concerns of others. ‘NOT’ just ours. We all share different views and opinions,which means there will be when all do not agree. And thats O.K. . If we all think the same, work the same, view the world and it’s challenges the same, our respond to problems and challenges the same, our companies and organizations would remain ‘Stagnant’, eventually seace to exsist.
Got to go Dan. At work at the moment.
“Good one my friend.”
Cheers Dan
SGT Steve
Opp’s , ( there will be TIMES)
Dear Dan,
When leaders do not see big picture, they engage into small intricacies in the organisations. They engage into solving petty issues which again complicate the environment. This makes big picture hazy. You are right describing is more important than explaining. Leaders need to define first what do they mean by big picture. It is extremely important. While defining big picture, leaders should take into account resources, capabilities and limitations of the organisation. Once it is done, it becomes easy to describe the strategy to achieve big picture.
And it is even more important to describe various processes and steps to get closer to big picture. In the process, the concept of short term, medium term and long term emerged. This is way leaders can see big picture.
As an emeritus professor very interested in K-12 education, this is a great post for education administrators at all levels to consider and reflect upon. I particularly like #3 and #7 for this group. Great post as usual, one I hope educators think about seriously!!!
Great post Dan – I’m really interested in suggestions of HOW to see what the big picture is. I have a lot of experience of the “three blind men and an elephant” scenario!
Dan, your BIG PICTURE post is long needed, and very important to the leadership mission, and to leader wellness. Leaders who take time to go out to see the big picture remind me of the freedom and power of light, and when dark and light are placed in the same room, light always wins. And because our nature is light, we triumph over every limit we’ve learned.
The big picture, I believe, is simultaneously about who we are and who we become. A Persian mathematician and philosopher said, “We are not a drop in the ocean: We are the entire ocean…in a drop.”
Is it possible most of us have been socialized into thinking or believing we are smaller or less than we are? Just as a little fishbowl keeps goldfish tiny, or an under-sized flowerpot keeps a mighty tree root-bound, we have adapted, adjusted and accommodated are minds and lives to a Lilliputian life. Yet, place the same fish in a lake or tree in an open field, and they will grow to hundreds of times their size.
Unlike the goldfish or tree, we need not be dependent on someone else for our freedom or growth. We have the power to think, believe and act for ourselves. We can go out and see the big picture, then step into a broader domain and grow to our full potential. The first step to planting ourselves in the spaciousness of our vast potential—is to decide we are not going to stay like we are.
Excellent post! I find this is especially important in the healthcare industry. Although the bottom line is key to increasing a health system’s effectiveness with clinical outcomes, it is certainly not the big picture.
Not to oversimplify, but to connect with the big picture, make sure you are constantly looking at the big picture. Make it part of your regular routine as a manager. I have created a cheat sheet that ties to both senior management’s key concerns and my department’s strategic plan. The cheat sheet is a table that has the relevant points in the left column and examples, conclusions, and observations that tie to them. If I cannot answer a key point, I know I need to go back and look again.