Trigger Question #133:
Most of the time, you cruise along in your role as manager until something goes wrong. Then you zoom in. You use your microscope mindset to focus on the detail until you uncover the cause.
Most of the time, you cruise along in your leadership role until something goes wrong. Then you zoom out. You use your telescope perspective to probe the bigger picture to assess whether the problem will still matter “tomorrow.”
At least, that’s how I hope you operate when you need to scope a problem. You use either your microscope mindset or your telescope perspective.
But which do you use first, microscope or telescope?
You will be ineffective if you ignore details that matter. And you will squander resources if you focus on issues that will fade away without your help.
But…. Which do you use first, microscope or telescope?
Well, what will a human do? When something goes wrong, our instinct is to react. And we react to what confronts us here and now (the details). We don’t intuitively pause and consider the longer term. We reach for the microscope before we reach for the telescope.
Consider this old cliché. When you are lost in the forest, you cannot help but see the individual trees. That’s how you avoid crashing into them. Yet, the way out is to pause, step back, and somehow develop a picture, an idea, of the forest. (By getting a better view from climbing to the top of one big tree?)
Clearly, at work you need both your microscope mentality and your telescope perspective. Often at the same time. But how do you do that?
The same way you read a book. If you hold the page too close to your eyes (microscope), you will only be able to read one word at a time. And if you move the page too far away (telescope), you will see the whole book, but not be able to read the words.
Yet, sometimes you zoom in on a single word to make sense of it (by looking up its meaning). And other times you zoom out to make sense of the book (by exploring its contents page). Somewhere between the extremes of word and book, its message is revealed.
And somewhere between the extremes of microscope mindset and telescope perspective, your job comes into focus.
Welcome to my side of the nonsense divide.
. . .