Many years ago, we had a client that went behind our back and tried to directly hire a consultant away from us to save some money. That consultant saw the opportunity to make more money and accepted the
client’s offer, which left us holding the bag with no client or consultant. This consultant had the habit of disappearing on the client every so often, in which case we would back up the consultant and provide additional resources to keep the project on track; we are a client centric company after all. But when this happened, we cut ties with the consultant and the client. Their actions were very short sighted, and it was clear they did not see the forest for the trees.
The first time the consultant disappeared after we parted ways, the client called us for backup as they usually would. We politely reminded them that they were no longer clients of ours and they were not happy with our response and as expected, their project came to a halt for a while. When the project ended for the consultant, he reached out to us for additional work, and we let him know we would no longer work together. While I am sure they are both fine, long term bridges were burned for short term gains, and with the stalls in the project how much money was saved?
I, myself, am guilty of not seeing the big picture. The community I live in had all the stucco redone on the buildings. As residents, we were given the chance to change or upgrade the windows on our homes. I opted not to, though in hindsight it would have been an ideal time to do it. I did not see the bigger picture, in which my current windows would soon wear out and the new ones would last longer; plus, with newer windows comes better technology. Instead, I took a very myopic view and when I do have to change the windows, it will require more work than it would have if I had changed them when given the opportunity.
How often do we not see the big picture because we are so bogged down in the details? Sometimes it makes sense to pick our heads up, look around and consider the entire picture.
“When we focus so hard on the tiny details, we leave ourselves open to miss the bigger picture. Details matter and so does an eagle’s point of view.”- Rosangel Perez
This weekend look up and look around, you may see some beautiful things you may have missed otherwise. Let me know what they are.
V-