Sharing "The Big Picture" To Create Success

As I work with companies both large and small, I am continually amazed at the limited amount of information shared with the employees. There seems to be a pervasive belief that sharing “the big picture” with everyone is not only unnecessary, but also may have some detrimental effect on their productivity.

My experience over the years of being involved in a wide range of projects, supervising large organizations, and running companies is just the opposite. In every example I can remember, productivity and eventual outcomes were improved and hastened by providing all the participants with a complete view of the strategy and the tactical steps being taken to achieve the strategy.

Let’s examine this from a large-scale project perspective.

You are one of the project leads. You have the 50,000-foot view of the project. You can see all the points the project touches. From your vantage point, you understand all the whys and wherefores of the project. Now, put yourself at one of the fringe points of the project and ask yourself the following questions: “If I was only given enough information about the project to do the part I am being asked to do, how much help could I really be?”, “How much input could I give to the overall success of the project?”, and finally “How empowered as a project team member do I feel since I was only given a minimum amount of information?”

If the team member out there on the fringe is empowered with the full view of the project, there exists the distinct possibility he delivers a jewel of an idea you would not have gotten without sharing the entire scope. Also, when team members understand the role they play in any project along with knowing the roles of the other members, you get better interactions between the members as they work with one another. These interactions pay dividends even after the project is complete.

Very recently, all this was brought back to my immediate attention while with a customer in a series of meetings about a large-scale project. The first couple of meetings were not as productive as I expected because the customer’s project manager only delivered part of the project scope. Between those first meetings and the later meetings in the day, I expressed my desire to describe “the big picture” around this project as the introduction to each meeting. In the following meetings, the description of the entire project removed the friction from the meeting attendees and, actually, created a sense of urgency and camaraderie around the project.

All of the above applies to everything from communicating company strategy to working with your significant other on personal projects. Always remember that no one is in your head but you. Those outside your head don’t understand when you start a conversation in the middle of a thought or explain some middle piece of a project. Spend a few minutes delivering “the big picture” and reap huge rewards.