Are You Getting The Big Picture?

One of my favorite stories is that of the four blind men and the elephant. When asked to describe the elephant, the blind man standing at the trunk described it as being like a snake, the one standing beside a leg described it as being like a tree, the blind man at the tail like a vine and the one on it’s back described the elephant as being like a whale.

With the rapid changes in technology and our business environments, more and more we are being forced to become increasingly specialized no matter what our role. One of us will know the “trunk” of our business environment extremely well, another the leg, another the tail and so on.

The challenge is that no matter how well you understand your particular piece of the puzzle, it is increasingly difficult to have a global understanding of your business environment.

So, how do we make sure that we are getting that big picture?

Like the four blind men, if you want to see and understand you’re your larger business environment, now more than ever you need to actively seek the perspective of others.

I call this being a proactive learner and the people who are able to do this well are invariably very successful in whatever they do.

Being a proactive learner means going beyond just listening to suggestions given at meetings by colleagues. Being a proactive learner means making a point of seeking out people with different views on your business, sitting down with them, asking questions and getting their perspective and insights.

Not everyone will speak up at a meeting and even when they do, the perspective and advice that they give is a simplified, politically correct version of what they know and are thinking.

If you want an effective vision of your business environment, you need to go out and pro-actively seek people’s opinions and perspectives on that environment be they your customers, colleagues or suppliers.

It is only when you get those different viewpoints that, like those four blind men, you can put together a coherent vision of the bigger picture.

If you can take the time and pro-actively get the perspective that others have of your business environment, just like those four blind men, you could learn that the animal standing in front of you is very different from what you first imagined.