Getting the big picture
We are surrounded by information. Data rushes past us in a fast-
flowing torrent. We need some way of making sense of it.
Quite often, I go to meetings that start before anyone has the
faintest notion of what the agenda is going to be. I sit and listen to
speakers who fail to tell me, at the beginning of their speech, what
they are going to talk about. I go to sessions where a trainer
launches straight into things without any context. I work with com-
panies undergoing major change programs where no one has made
it clear to everyone concerned why they are happening, and every-
one is circulating data that is apparently important and that few
people actually understand. And, in my private life, I encounter
many potentially enriching situations where information is being
presented as if it were the only reality rather than a point of view.
This kind of experience is deeply frustrating for your brain.
To be able to operate effectively, your brain likes, as you have
already seen, to be able to make connections and see patterns
between things. Deprive it of a context and it is much more diffi-
cult for it to connect what it is seeing or hearing or experiencing
with what it already knows. It is also more likely that you will feel
discomfort or anxiety as a result of trying to work out the relevance
of what you are being faced with.
One of the most important learning to learn skills is the abil-
ity to ask questions that will enable you to check out the big pic-
ture. You may also need to interrupt the momentum of the
situation to check out what is going on.10 tips for asking for the big picture
1 I’m really sorry, but I don’t know what this is about. Could you
explain?
2 Have I missed something? This doesn’t seem to fit with what I
thought we were going to be doing. Perhaps you can explain.
3 Could you just go back over what it was you were planning to deal
with in this session?
Resourcefulness 103