Reigniting Direction: Shifting Polarized Positions to Collective Thinking Part 1
[center]
Ever feel like a gerbil on an exercise wheel?
Running like crazy to stay in the same place?
The Impact of Global Trends
Without the capacity to step back and look at things from a more detached perspective, it is hard not to fall into a state of maintaining the status quo. However, unlike the gerbil, you have the option of standing back, stepping out of the spin cycle and taking a good look at what is going on. Regain your bearing so you can navigate to where you want to go.
Sometimes the best you can do is keep one foot on the wheel, keep it spinning, so you can focus on gathering the information necessary to see the forces influencing you and your company.
HRMA Competency: II. Business Acumen-3: Gathers, analyzes, and reports relevant business and industry information including global trends.
Tips to developing competency in seeing the big picture:
1. Know how you tend to think. If you naturally connect the seeming unrelated events into a big picture then all you need is reflection time to pull the pieces together. If you are a detailed person then you may want to team up with a visionary type. You can draw on both strengths. Two different thinkers can function better than one especially when it comes to teasing out the key threads that hold the fabric together.
2. If by day you are putting fires out it is a bit of a leap to become a visionary, wide-angle lens thinker. Reserve some time to spend outside of the onslaught of noise to suspend thinking. It is a skill called de-focalization. This is a fancy way of saying that your best thinking is likely to happen when you are not thinking or focusing on the problem. That’s why holidays are a good idea or spontaneous walks in a natural area. Flashes of insight arrive when you are open to receive them, not on demand. Pay attention to thoughts that ping you when you are gardening, showering, jogging, (or on the toilet though not many will admit that!).
3. Practice changing perspective. Consider that the situation you are in is a scene in a movie. You can either be an actor in the movie or be holding the camera. Shift from one position to another in your mind. Move from your point of view to the viewpoint of someone you don’t agree with at all. What can you see from their vantage point? Scale it up and you can use divergent conflicting information to spot the impact of global trends on you and your colleagues. It necessitates objectivity and detachment.
Complementary and Critical Competency: These are times of rapid change, compressed time, and information overload. Analysis is helpful but it is not the tool that will help you see the dynamic trend threading its way through the information you gather. Pay attention to your gut instinct, gut feel, intuition; call it what you will. It’s the guidance system that will cut through the chatter and point the way in a nanosecond.
What have you learned about converting conflict into trust?
Dawna Jones is the author of Decision Making for Dummies. Contact her to talk about co-creating change in your company. dawna@frominsighttoaction.com
