The Winner Is The One With Perspective
I don’t know about you, but most of my life until recent years has been consumed by the crisis of the moment. Of course, what’s broken right now needs fixing, but how much damage is done by always concentrating on the details while, sadly, also always missing seeing the forest?
Ensuring we maintain perspective is a great way to keep our thinking relevant, both in the short term and the long term.
However, this is not always easy – a personal example:
I walk a lot – it’s great exercise. However, like the detail junkie I am by nature, I always catch myself walking with my head down versus looking up and seeing everything around me. Sure, my tendency to be deep in thought may get more things “figured out,” but how much perspective is sacrificed by missing my surroundings?
There is a simple piece of business philosophy that I have always loved and it may help remind us about perspective: We must work hard in the business, but must also be working hard on the business. A key reason that many CEO’s are set apart from their colleagues is their unique ability to see the whole field and transcend living only in the details. In fact, the CEO of a recent client said he wants his C-level leaders spending 50% of their time working with him on building the future of the company.
We really must remind ourselves that having perspective is a really key part of having a clue, and the clueless do not win unless they are lucky.