How to Embrace the Big Picture Thinking?

More than ever, organisations and individuals are looking ahead to the future with a close lens and keen insights. This type of big-picture thinking is imperative to the success of any company or a person. It’s part of building mental fitness. After all, our world is not static, rather it is in a constant state of change. With much of the future unknown and uncertain, companies (and people) need to stay agile and think strategically about what’s to come ahead. In fact, half of us feel unable to plan for the future.

Having said that, we also need to make sure to stay reactive. Our organizations know that the future isn’t set in stone. Nowadays, the future is fluid. To look at the bigger picture ahead, we know that we need to make space for reflection in case things don’t go as planned.

In this article, we shall deliberate on how to adopt habits to become a BIG Picture Thinker. Let’s find out how BIG Picture Thinking Pattern can keep ourselves and our organizations a step ahead from the competition, from the market place — and be better prepared to pivot when needed.

Who’re the Big Picture Thinkers?

The BIG Picture People tend to be creative, strategic, and visionary, but they can also be messy, disorganised, and forgetful. On the other hand, the detail oriented people are conscientious and exacting, but may lack perspective or fail to prioritise long-term goals. These types of thinking skills aren’t inherently natural to us. Like any other sort of skill or muscle, it takes practice to start thinking with a BIG Picture view. Let’s see how BIG Picture Thinking should work for us and why it’s worth investing in building a future-mindedness in our respective workplacs?

Ways to Embrace Big Picture Thinking

1. The Power of seeing the Whole

In most cases, particularly in our part of the world, we are not trained to have a holistic view of things. Rather, we look at the transactional value of the pieces. We love to work in silos and we feel good about it. Also, in most cases we don’t like others to interfere in our respective domains even for our own good. We live with this distorted desire to control i.e. I am the In-charge for my own little kingdom.

Unfortunately, most managers are trained like that, not bothered to look at the BIGGER Picture, e.g., the Heads of HR, Finance, IT or other support function are generally busy adding frills to their little empires without realizing the purpose or core of their organisational existence. Similarly, they train their successors in a similar fashion, living in their own (fool’s) paradise.

2. Spare Time to Reflect

Rather than acting on short-term conditions such as emotions, fatigue, time pressure or distraction, deciding based on the BIG Picture can ensure us prioritise effectively and set achievable goals. Here are a few methods we can use to think about the big picture:

1. Connect with the Divine and seek help
2. Write down the BIG Goals
3. Go for a thoughtful walk
4. Talk to a friend or a family member who is a good listener and seek advice

3. Build Future-Centric Skills

We all understand that due to the current economic situation around the world, the future will remain uncertain for a foreseeable time and that’s fine. Organizations and individuals everywhere are navigating the same uncertainty and unknown. In fact, 63% of Americans say they’re stressed about the unknown. But our workforce doesn’t have to feel like it’s navigating the unknown alone or without support.

Creating future-centric leaders in our organisations will help keep our employees agile, healthy, and engaged. Research shows that future-centric leaders report increased team agility, team performance, innovation, and resilience. 82% of people have significant room for improvement in at least one area of future-centric leadership skills.

4. The Journey Starts from Within

It takes a “leadershift” — a balance between standing back and seeing the big picture (vision) and moving in close while painting all of the fine details (execution). BIG Picture Thinkers dream of the opportunities, not just the problems, they see possibilities, not barriers. They have the capability of see across the wall.

BIG Picture leaders then take those abstract thoughts and envision strategic outcomes. They can make a plan for how to create opportunities from challenges, and outcomes that drive an organization to somewhere ahead of where it is today. BIG Picture leaders elevate possibilities, processes and people.

5. Convert Plans into Action

Since we are discussing the BIG Picture Thinking and painting a vision, let’s see what the great artist Pablo Picasso had to say: “Our goals can only be reached through the vehicle of a plan. There is no other route to success.”

As we look through our own leadership lens today, let’s ask ourselves:

1. Do we have a vision for what we do?
2. Is our vision in sync with our life goals?
3. Are the goals outlined with a plan that is SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time-bound)?
4. Does our vision include leading others toward the end state? If so, am I more focused on managing an operation or leading people?

Summary

In short, “Symphony” is the ability to see the big picture not only in terms of analysis, but also to integrate and synthesise to see that the whole is greater than the sum of all the parts. It is a capacity that each person has to a degree. The more this symphony is cultivated the easier it becomes to communicate and understand the job as a whole, the significance of each part to success, and the subtle interrelationships among the parts.

Let’s not forget that the change is the only constant and is necessary for evolution. Leadership Guru John C. Maxwell writes in his book Leadershift, “You cannot be the same, think the same, and act the same if you hope to be successful in a world that does not remain the same”.

About the Author

Muhammad Sajwani is a C-Level HR, Transformation Leader, Board Advisor, Business Coach & Organisational Consultant working in the capacity of Managing Director, Evolve HR. He is an author, columnist and a contributor who besides writing for other platforms also regularly writes at BizCatalyst 360. He brings along 30+ years of local & international experience. He is a change catalyst specializing in unleashing the human Dreamgenius through Leadership, Creativity and Change Management. Muhammad has been instrumental in helping organizations come to terms with organizational changes like right-sizing and business process re-engineering. His innovative approach & high personal competence encourages people to not only accept change, but also to excel in it. Muhammad has diverse experience in conducting strategic & management development programs, conferences & events for organizations across sectors.