Be The Big Picture Person

It's believed that there are two kinds of people -- the detail oriented people and the big picture people. But most people get the classification wrong. Being detail oriented is not same as just having an eye for detail. Everyone, every human need to have an eye for detail. Information/detail empower. But being detail oriented means you don't see beyond the detail. It's like being a finance lecturer versus being an investment banker. The finance lecturer knows the detail but he doesn't use it to do anything extraordinary, he simply teaches it to others and research more on it. While the investment banker uses the detail in ways the books never mentioned. He sees it as just a tool in his toolbox. He tries to see into the future with the detail. And you need to be like the investment banker.

image: tfosuccess.com

You have to see beyond now, see beyond the immediate and always aim to see the big picture in all you do. Don't kill yourself over tiny details. Don't be the impulsive type, who acts without looking beyond his nose.

Being a big picture person isn't the opposite of paying attention to detail. No one as an excuse for not paying attention to detail. It's no joke, the saying that the devil is in the detail. The entire law industry is built on exploiting people who don't pay attention to detail. No company wants an employee who keeps making embarrassing mistakes. And no company can be successfully run by a man who has no eyes for detail. So if you have trouble with details don't ever make the mistake of thinking that makes you a big picture person.

It's what you do with the details that separate a detail oriented person from a big picture person. A detail oriented person obssesses with the detail and won't stop turning it around while a big picture person see the detail as part of a jigsaw puzzle. He understands the detail and move on to other pieces, trying to put together the puzzle. It's a higher level of interacting with data/detail. And that's why I believe everyone should be a big picture person.