Developing big picture thinking

Developing big picture thinking

Having discussed the definition of big picture thinking and its benefits on growth, let us understand the process of developing the big picture thinking as an individual.

Once three people were working on the bridge construction. The stranger approached the first person asked what he was doing. The person said, "Can't you see that i am laying stones." The stranger quickly moved on to the second person and asked the same question. The person replied: "I am working on my income to take care of myself and family."

      The stranger moved on to the third person and asked him what he was doing. The person replied with a smile, "I am building a bridge, once the bridge construction is over, many people will pass on. I am helping others to move fast. This bridge will be here centuries after I leave."    
 
       The story has a profound message of how you are looking at your work with a higher purpose makes a difference in the quality of work and life. That is big picture thinking. Here we extend our perspective or thinking from being working for survival to a higher purpose,
 
 Similarly, with your qualifications and experience, you are working as a professional. How do you look at your profession for the next  5-10 years' time? Today, you are running a business in a small way, how do you look at your product/ service and its impact on the market  10~20 years from now?

If you look at your profession as a means for survival, that is low order level thinking. When you extend your thinking about the impact you can create through your job or your business, you are into high order or big picture thinking.

When you are proposing some ideas to your team, and if they are not receiving it well, you may think they are resisting. That is low order thinking or micro-level thinking. The big picture thinking could be either team needs more explanation about the proposal, or they are not ready to digest, or you need to improve the communication skill, or the timing is not perfect. That is big picture thinking. In this process, you are looking at the event from 360 angles.
 
The key is how you are extending your thinking process from minute to higher, wider,360 angle makes you learn the big picture thinking process.
 

Big picture thinking is an art and can be developed at any age with awareness and practice.

Big picture Thinking

Big picture Thinking 

One of the qualities of competent people is the ability to have “Big picture thinking or perspective” in any circumstances.

What is meant by Big picture thinking or perspective?

A big picture perspective is looking at any interaction or event or opportunities from a higher, broader angle view to get the holistic idea rather than immediately getting into details.

For example, when you fly over your city on a flight, you able to view the entire city. You may be able to look at high rise buildings, rivers, roads, flyovers, and so on. This holistic view is possible only when you are at an elevated level, say at higher feet from the ground.

Similarly, in personal and professional life, when you look at any events, incidences, conversations from a higher-level view, you will get a holistic idea about opportunities, growth potentials, and other benefits. The key is elevating yourself at a higher level or distant yourself emotionally and look at the things.

Suppose your boss is asking you to take additional responsibility as being aware of your potential. If you are a big picture thinking oriented person, you will be immediately thinking about learning opportunities, future growth prospects, exposure, and so on. Else, immediately you will be worrying about too much about the unfamiliarity of the job and refuse to accept or getting into a conversation on monetary benefits, working hours flexibility, and so on.
 
The point is not to get into the details, but how you are distant yourself emotionally, elevating yourself to look at a higher and wider level helps you to get a holistic view. Once you see the comprehensive picture, your mind is ready to take on any challenges on the micro-level. This mind shift only provides the path for growth.

Now the question maybe

1. As a leader, how can I develop my people to get into big picture thinking?
2. As an individual, how can I develop my thinking process?
3. When can we shift from the big picture to detailing and vice versa

Let us discuss it next week!

Look up -insightful lesson

Recently i came across the viral video,(released 6 years back with more than 6 crores views till now ), and it talks about our addiction to smartphones and social media and losing the personal connection with the real, live human beings in front of us.

Director Gary conceptualized the theme by a story of a lost young man falling in love with a woman who gives him direction and their life together without the hindrance of social media.

Suggest you watch this video with Captions twice, and you will be able to relate how much we are losing our time in WhatsApp/ Facebook / YouTube and other social media blindly without real relationship building with the people next to us.

I hope you enjoy it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7dLU6fk9QY

Dealing setback -a leader's mindset

A few weeks back, i  met the CEO of a firm whom I know for many years. He is looking after many businesses, apart from his passionate activities. A few years back, he ventured into a new business, and he had been consistently growing since inception.

When I asked him about this year's performance of his new venture, he replied that performance was not up to the expectation and indicated some no's. I wondered about his coolness and asked about his mindset to manage through this slowdown setback.

His reply seems to be the real testimonial of authentic leadership.

• My senior team is continuously working hard, and I am not finding a problem with them except the external environment
• Despite the external reason, we are working on our initiatives, and this will help us when the external environment turns positive
• Now I am spending more time with the team  to share  more insights about business and their development
• I am optimistic that the initiatives will bring more business when the external environment turns favorable 

The responses reflect the right leadership behavior. As we discussed some time back, leadership is all about mindset, thought process, and actions that impact others positively.

It is essential during tough times the leader should maintain coolness, not getting into negativity or blaming everything, believe in non-permanency, work for the long term, and hope for the future. More than that, taking personal responsibility to turnaround within the individual or team's capability is more critical.

No wonder that his team regards him as a role model.

Sometimes as a leader, we forget our balance during setbacks!

managing emotions in transition

managing emotions in transition

 

As discussed, three stages in the transition process in any change, and there are emotions involved in each step. Effective people are better at managing those emotional aspects.
 
During Expose to Change:

It is natural to get all the emotions like shock, angry, upset. The key is to be aware of those feelings and how you are passing through it. Some people, when they are not aware of it, they react to those emotions by way of outburst and spoiling the relationship.

For example,
you might have observed that in the origination, the moment the boss proposes something, the immediate reaction from any one of the subordinates is "NO" or "NOT POSSIBLE". This is the outcome of inability to manage the emotions during expose to change. (But the same person might have anchored the change successfully but leaves the impression that the person always a skeptic and cynical! )

Hence, this stage calls for awareness of emotions and neutralizes it by calm, listen further, and move on to the next step.

Immersion stage:

Once you pass through the first stage, in this immersion stage, you are mentally accepting the change and undergoing the consequence of the change.

When you feel "Let it Go," that moment, you are allowing yourself for the change or transformation to the next transition.

Recovering stage:

In this stage, you are in reflective feeling and analyzing the pros and cons of the changes. You are discovering a new self, which is more rewarding due to the change event.

For example, when you accept that you need to relocate to a new place as a change, in this phase, your mind took the change and started weighing the good and bad. You are about to see the big picture and some insights as well. That is when you are ready for a transformation.

The point is whether the change event is big or small. Naturally, everyone will undergo three phases of transition, and each stage consists of emotions. How you are aware of feelings and getting new perspectives makes you effective in handling any change!

Why do we resist change initially?

As discussed, the change happens due to self-decision or imposed by the environment or others. When the transition happens from external, we find it more challenging to cope up. The reason could be our mind is evolved to 
 

• Seek certainty by maintaining the status quo
• Seek rewards and happiness
• Avoid any form of threat to current lifestyle
• Minimize the energy to spend on new experiences

This comfort is natural.

Some competent people are aware of the emotions during the transition process, and if we understand the process, easy to manage the transition smoothly.

When others impose the change, everyone needs to undergo the three stages of the transition process. In each step, there are emotions involved. If we manage those emotions in each process, we can handle any change process.

Three stages of transition in any change

 
For example,

In a working place, you are with high expectations of getting a promotion in your job as you believe you are reasonably performing well.
Now you hear the news that you are not getting expected the promotion. That is the change event you need to manage through three stages.

Expose to change:

You heard the news that you are not getting a promotion. The moment you understand this, you are getting shocked, getting angry, start blaming either your boss or organization, feeling low due to a helpless situation, and then becoming upset or sad.

The way you are managing those emotions during the exposure stage is all about managing the transition process.

Immersion stage:

Once you pass through the exposure stage, now you hear the details or justification for not being promoted. You are profoundly going through the disappointment phase
During the phase, you are absorbing and mentally accepting reality.

The way you are managing those emotions during the stage is all about managing the transition process.

Recovering stage:

Then, once you pass through immersion stage, you start introspecting for not being’ promoted, weighing the pro’s and con’s of promotion and you will be getting new insights about your improvement avenues.

The way you are managing those emotions during the stage is all about managing the transition process.

The duration of the stages may differ people to people from a few minutes to a few days !

In all the stages of the transition process, the way we are managing the emotions and look at the emotions from a different perspective is the key to managing any changes smoothly.

Let us discuss those parts next week!

Managing Changes- Is change good or bad?

Is change good or bad?

As discussed last week, change is a continuous event in life, and we need to master the emotional aspects of the transition process.

In personal and professional life, most of us encounter the following changes.

•   Relocating to a new place
•   Changing job from one organization to another
•   Change of boss 
•   Shift in career 
•   From the audience to the active presenter to knowledgeable group
•   From employee to self-employed
•   From individual contributor to people manager
•   Learning a new skill to improve professional growth
•   Being a bachelor to married 
•   When an unexpected event happened from our plan 

When you look at the list above, some of the changes are imposed on us by the circumstances or by others and some of the changes we initiate on our own.

For example, relocating to a new place is a change that might have occurred due to others or by our own decision.

Depending on the nature of the change and the inward or outward momentum, the transition process creates different emotional turbulence inside.

Is change good or bad?

Most of the time, the change brings progress only, either in terms of comfort, wellness, material prosperity, or mental maturity.

For example, one of my known friends was asked to relocate to different geography of the same company, without much change in the positional, materialistic, job profile. But the change in a location exposed the friend to the new experience of handling people in different geography and helped him to accelerate the career at a later stage. 

When you relate to the changes in your life, you also will conclude that most of the changes brought good things in your life.

Having benefitted from the changes most of the time, but why do we initially resist the change?

Let us discuss it next week!

Have a great week until then! 

Managing Changes

 

Throughout life, one thing is continuously happening to every one of us  “change.”

The change is either triggered by external factors or our self-drive. Whether the change is internal or external driven, the process of transition is mostly painful. The pain is not due to specific CHANGE event, but due to the TRANSITION  process, which we undergo internally.

What is meant by change?

Moving from existing, comfort state  to new, unknown perceived discomfort zone



In between moving from a comfort state and settling down in a new state, we undergo a psychological transition process.
 
For example,

You are informed that a new boss is going to head to your organization. The moment you get the information, you may undergo internally mix up of emotional reactions and thought process like

Whether the new boss is comfortable to work? (doubt)
What will be his / her expectation, will we meet his / her expectations? (anxiety)
Will there be any change in my job profile or growth aspects? (fear)
 
Likewise, there are many changes for which we undergo different emotional reactions depending upon the nature of change.

When we do not know to manage the emotional transition process, we become a victim of the change event, and eventually, we lose the growth potential.

There are many books had been written on change management from an organizational perspective. In my opinion, we need to learn the process of transition from a personal perspective. If we are aware of the process, then as a manager or leader, one can drive the change management quickly at an organizational level as well.

Hence, we need to be aware of the change management process on the following

• Change management  process and the emotional aspects in each stage
• Knowing to manage the emotions at each stage
• Some insights of changes to our quality of life
• How can you proactively initiate some of the changes internally driven?
• Leadership role in managing the changes smoothly in an organizational setup

 Let us discuss next week and solicit your views!

How does the environment affect you?

How does the environment affect you?

A few days back, i met a friend after a long time. During the interaction, he was frequently mentioning his colleagues' and subordinate’s toxic behaviors and his frustration to work with them. As I knew him as a highly energetic and positive person, but now he becomes more skeptical about any new initiatives and cynical about everything in his workplace and quality of life. He was much disturbed due to his colleagues/subordinates as they are the people with whom he spends much time.

It is said that you are the AVERAGE of the five people you spend most of the time.  This statement may be true because your environment influences your thought processes, behaviors, and activities. The environment can be family, professional, or friend ‘s circle.

 When you surround yourself with positive and energetic people, you will also start to observe them, reflect their thought process and behavior in you without much conscious effort. Alternatively, if you are surrounded by mostly with toxic people who are always blaming/complaining about everything, you will also start believing in their thought process, and you will also demonstrate the same behavior. That is the power of the environment and its influence in our life.

       As you cannot change the environment completely, be aware of the quality of people you are surrounded by, the news channel you are watching, your Facebook / WhatsApp feeds, and so on. Make a slight shift in the environmental mix by meeting new people, joining educational forums, visiting new places, getting exposed to new challenges, and associating with people beyond your natural circle. This shift will help you to enhance your perspectives.

       Since the environment influences your action, be aware of the quality of your situation, and choose the balanced mix.

P.S: (I suggested my friend look up other functional colleagues, benchmark his boss, and start spending more time with different circles to alter his environment mix. I hope things will become better soon!)

You can delegate a task, not accountability!

You can delegate a task, not accountability!
 

One of the responses for last week's discussion on delegation skill is “After I delegate the task to my colleague or team member and if he/ she does not execute the task as expected, how can I be responsible?”.

We need to understand the difference between responsibility and accountability. Accountability is someone ultimately accountable for RESULT, whereas Responsibility is someone responsible for the EFFORT or PROCESS.

Accountability is outcome-based; responsibility is process-based.

In an organizational context, when you are delegating some tasks to someone, you are just partially offloading your task to someone with empowerment to complete the task. Still, ultimately you are accountable for the result of the task. You cannot pass the ownership of the result to others. That is why we need to understand that delegation is not just the allocation of duty to others.

Effective delegation is a combination of
 Knowing what to delegate+ To whom to delegate+ Education+ Guiding

For example, as production in charge, you are just delegating the task to your reports, but you are accountable for the delivery and not your team. You are delegating the responsibility only, not accountability. Finally, you are accountable for your team’s performance.

We need to understand that the art of delegation itself is a responsibility, not just outsourcing the task to someone. When we own that responsibility, we become master the art of delegation skill!