![]() She adds “The why of what you do is incredibly motivating, so it’s not surprising that many of us often prefer to think of our own actions in those terms. Something that may not seem important or valuable on its own can be cast in a whole new light,” says Heidi Grant, a social psychologist in Succeed. “Thinking more abstractly about behavior can be very energizing because you are linking one particular, often small action to a greater meaning or purpose. Take your own example – if your boss asks you to stay back late and assigns you a bunch of tasks with what needs to be done without explaining why, would you like to stay put and work hard? In other words, describing what they should do may not bring about any change, while describing why they should do it just might. Look at it this way – if an employee is doing a mediocre job or finding it hard to draw inspiration in their day-to-day tasks, telling them why their performance matters to the company by connecting it to the larger meaning or purpose using the big picture thinking is often more inspiring than telling them what they need to do. Big picture thinking acting as the motivational force to guide decision making, encouraging clear thinking and reminding everyone of the benefits of sticking to larger goals of the organisation while using nitty-gritty thinking to achieve those goals by reminding people to focus on the task at hand.īoth modes of thinking have their advantages and the best strategy is to shift the thinking style based on what you want to achieve and the specific challenges you are facing. The idea is not to choose one thinking style over the other, but for both to coexist. Which thinking style is more effective – big picture or the nitty-gritty? The reverse also plays out as we will see later. Spend more and more time in fixing the “what”, while it’s the “why” that can save the day. It is not uncommon to see these issues crippling the organisation on a daily basis and yet what do most people do. Out comes the product that’s not even close to what was envisioned in the beginning and what happens afterwards – excuses and blame games in the form of communication lapses and collaboration mishaps. Time and energy is spent on inconsequential tasks without questioning their effectiveness. ![]() More and more time is spent in arguing over minor issues that won’t generate any meaningful results. Results?Įmployees start protecting their team goals with my team vs your team attitude instead of dealing with conflicting priorities by connecting their decision to the big picture. With too much focus on details, people lose sight of the big picture – why they were doing something in the first place and signed up to be a part of this journey. Once people get too involved in the day-to-day execution tasks, it’s often easy to not see the forest for the trees. With the hostile takeover of the nitty-gritty thinking that’s only concerned with the “what”, the memory of big picture thinking with its “why” soon fades away. The big picture thinking soon goes out of the picture being replaced by its nitty-gritty sister who’s only concerned with the “what” – the actual mechanics of getting from point A to point B steps in the process. ![]() Though not for all, most people in the organisation find this phase highly energising and exhilarating. Mental gymnastics that goes with determining the “why” – meaning or purpose of goals, promise of a better future, and the excitement of doing something new definitely gets the creative juices flowing. In most organisations, big picture thinking comes off as a seasonal flavour often appearing every few months.
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