Big Picture

During my summer associateship at BIGLAW we did this Outward Bound "team building" day -- attorneys and summer associates alike. One of the exercises was to verbally guide your blindfolded partner through an obstacle course (around cones, under a net, etc.). Everyone around me was hurriedly saying things like -- "take three small steps. Good. Okay, another half-step. Okay, now turn left 90 degrees." My approach was different -- first I said to my guy, "Okay, we're in a big field, and there are going to be three sections of this journey -- first around some cones, then a jog to the left, and under a soccer net that you're going to have to pick up and walk under, and then around some logs to the end. Let's get started on the cone part. They're pretty evenly distributed, and I'll guide you through them. First, you'll want to take about three small steps...." I didn't really notice the difference in approach until another attorney commented on it as quite unique.

This is how I think. I guess it's different from the way other people think. I NEED the big picture first, to get oriented, so I understand the task at hand and where it fits in to the larger service for a client. Even if my role, and the things I need to do right now, are limited -- some onlookers would say that all I really need to know at any moment, I suppose, is the "take three small steps" part of the journey.

It makes me so disappointed and frustrated when I ask people for guidance on something and they respond only on the "take three small steps" level. The Big Guy is great about giving me my bearings in a matter -- what's going on, why we're doing this for the client in the first place, what's to come, and then what my role is in it. Somehow that kind of orientation lets me do a much better job at taking the three small steps. With other people I try to explain the kind of instruction and guidance I want, to ask for it with precision because I know not everyone thinks the same way I do but sometimes I get this look like, "hey, don't worry about that now, just take three small steps, and let me worry about the rest. I'll tell you when you need to turn."

Comments

Wow. Very insightful. I've found that I can operate both ways, but that I feel better about my work if I understand where it fits into the big picture.