Success Key: Nurture the big picture
One key difference I’ve noticed between leaders and everyone else is that leaders do a better job focusing on the big picture. When you get to the top level of anything nurturing the “big picture” becomes your job.
What is the big picture?
In some companies the big picture is the profits. In others the mission statement. In some organizations it’s called “higher purpose”. Whatever it’s called the big picture is really accountability and determining what you want your organization to be accountable for.
Often this is a competitive advantage like pizza in 30 minutes or less. Or a battle cry like doing what we do best.
Whatever the big picture is the leader’s job is to get the employees informed of it and then to buy into it.
Benefits of the big picture
By tracking the organization’s ability to reach and maintain it’s place in the big picture the leader can see how healthy the organization is and how well their leadership is going. If a company is dedicated to developing the ultimate driving machine but customer complaints and recalls are up something is wrong and needs to be addressed. Somehow, the organization lost it’s way. On the other hand, if customer comments all agree that you really do try harder, then things are going well.
The big picture also helps in another important area of leadership which is staying out of the bullshit. By focusing on what’s important to make the vision come to life the leader can spot the distractions and clutter that interfere with the operations needed to fulfill their mission. These distractions can be dealt with several ways depending on their severity of the issue. In some cases a personnel change may be in order. In others it may be best to just ignore what’s going on because if you don’t buy into it, neither will anyone else.
The discipline of the big picture
Today I spotted an area where my own discipline prevents me from focusing on the big picture. You see, every night my webhost updates my server logs at 11:30 PM. Which is the same time my wife wants to go to bed.
Now these logs are important - they show me the growth, earnings and potential of my various websites. If one of them takes a sudden surge in traffic I want to capitalize on that. On the other hand if one drops suddenly I want to identify and correct whatever is going wrong.
At least that is my justification. The reality is I do have other programs in place to keep me up to date on how the sites are operating throughout the day. The big collective report can wait until morning. I know this because that is how I handle my client sites. They are handled during regular business hours unless there is a crisis.
What’s more, I realize now that by digging through my logs and tearing into the data I’ve lost my ability to focus on what is actually important. On my sites I’m so deep in the details that I’ve lost site of the big picture. My client sites are outperforming my own sites because I give them time to develop in the online community instead of trying to force their direction at every turn. I mean, you can’t really make seeds grow, you know?
I need to take a step back and practice what I preach. I need to make room for you, dear reader, to copilot my efforts. And I definitely need to get back to the big picture.
With that I will refocus my discipline. And make my wife a happy woman by joining her in bed at a reasonable hour.
What is your big picture? When do you lose sight of it?