Have you ever found yourself so close to an issue or problem that you lost sight of your overall goal or perspective? I suspect your answer is “yes” because almost everyone has, at one time or another, allowed the details or minutiae of a situation to cloud good judgment and thus jeopardize the ultimate outcome. No matter what your profession is or what industry you work in, you’ve probably found yourself in one or more of these situations –
- Getting so caught up in editing a document or speech that you stop thinking about your core message
- Allowing a co-worker’s irritating habit to get under your skin , so much so that you can no longer focus on the crucial job you need to do together
- Thinking repeatedly about all the reasons a course of action will fail and so you overlook the significant likelihood that you will be successful
- Dealing with the day-to-day crises takes up so much of your time that you have no energy to think purposefully for the long-term.
- Rolling up your sleeves to solve a problem (because you know you can) instead of delegating the task to another member of your team, because you fail to remember that your skills are better utilized at a more strategic level
If any of these situations strike a chord, then here’s something to consider: you can’t read the label from inside the bottle. Need I say more?
What are you doing to force yourself to step outside the bottle so that you CAN read the label? What gets in the way? Share your perspectives by adding a Comment below.