Big Picturers

I myself have a little trouble practicing the Move-on idea. There’s something so tenaciously lingering in my mind, so let me get it over with right here right now (and I won’t go back to search through those ‘drafts’…)

Seth Godin posted a great blog about “how to deal with ‘No’” a while back. Great. You can read it here, because you most likely won’t be satisfied with my one-line summary below:

Focus on the BIG Picture (it’s not just about you).

It’s just that easy. All we have to do is forget ourselves for a moment and think from the Big-picture perspective. Think not of the big paycheck or sense of accomplishments or praise or envy from others, but of the future of the company. By the way, would you give a damn, truly give a damn, if you are not trying to get in?

Easy principles are often the hardest to practice. However, for true big picturers, such ‘against-selfish-human-nature’, hard-to-implement advice/action is just natural reflection of their big-picture thinking (because they give a damn and it’s not just them!).

The sad thing, the thing that worries me, is the whole culture that’s skewed towards the obsession with ‘skills’ that ‘gets you in’. People are encouraged/enticed to learn, practice, sharpen (and pay for) the ‘skills’ that make you look like a perfect match for whichever company you’re trying to get in. it doesn’t matter if you really are passionate or suitable, you just have to look like it. So you pay for the skills to make yourselves look really passionate and ‘qualified’.

Seth’s advices in the blog post, originally a display of big picturers’ natural action, could i) become a catalyst to re-invent the culture, or they could ii) be squeezed into the category of “latest skills” that “get you in”. We’ll see.
If ii) would be the result, unfortunately, those advices would be like obsolete technology that loses competitive advantage in a few years time (or shorter). And sadly, it might even crowd out some real big picturers in certain markets.

Or, by then, with all the passion & care & infinite innovativeness, you big picturers may have already developed some even more brilliant next-generation best-practices that blow our minds (including Seth’s) away.