Cultivate Big-Picture Thinking
“Where success is concerned, people are not measured in inches, or
pounds, or college degrees, or family background; they are measured by the
size of their thinking.”
—D
AVID
S
CHWARTZ
Big-picture thinking can benefit any person in any profession. When somebody
like Jack Welch tells a GE employee that the ongoing relationship with the
customer is more important than the
sale of an individual product, he’s
reminding them of the big picture. When two parents are fed up with potty
training, poor grades,
or fender-benders, and one reminds the other that the
current difficult time is only a temporary season, then they benefit from thinking
big picture. Real estate developer Donald Trump quipped, “You have to think
anyway, so why not think big?” Big-picture thinking
brings wholeness and
maturity to a person’s thinking. It brings perspective. It’s like making the frame
of a picture bigger, in the process expanding not only what you can see, but what
you are able to do.
Spend time with big-picture thinkers, and you will find that they:
Learn Continually
Big-picture thinkers are never satisfied with what they already know. They are
always visiting new places, reading new books,
meeting new people, learning
new skills. And because of that practice, they often
are able to connect the
unconnected. They are lifelong learners.
To help me maintain a learner’s attitude, I spend a few moments every
morning thinking about my learning opportunities for the day.
As I review my
calendar and to-do list—knowing whom I will meet that day, what I will read,
which meetings I will attend—I note where I am most likely to learn something.
Then I mentally cue myself to look attentively for something that will improve
me in that situation. If you desire to keep learning, I want to encourage you to
examine your day and look for opportunities to learn.
