Big Picture View For Business Leaders

The Magic of Big Picture Thinking

It’s wise to spend time thinking about the major influences on your business.

And about opportunities too. Big opportunities often drive big-picture thinking. Great opportunities evolve from a wider view with the optimism that you can capture them.  When ambition lags, we see business owners fall into small-minded traps. With high taxes, high operating costs, and tough competition, a business needs the guidance of big-picture thinking.

These are the “big picture” processes and goals which too often get overwritten and obscured by reactive style managing. And when business leaders understand the big picture and lead by example, employees are clearer about the company’s mission, brand and strategy.

And customers too, get a clearer idea of the brand. In fact, a focus on marketing strategy is the best example of big picture thinking. Because marketing drives a thriving company with a long-term goal.

Enjoy these insights and tips on how to evolve to big-picture thinking success below.

Leading the Way with Big Picture Vision

CEO’s, entrepreneurs, CMOs, CIO’s and small business owners are the master controllers of companies — the core of the spirit of their business and the chief navigator.

They bring their optimism and strong understanding of the big picture to map the way forward. This makes the company infinitely adaptable, focused on achieving goals, mastering the journey with confidence, and helping employees understand the journey and how they can contribute powerfully.

The big picture provides clarity and puts wind in the sails.

It leads to a laser-clear brand and UVP well delivered to a well-understood target customer. Big picture focuses on what the market wants and matches up to what you’re selling. Often however, none of this is very clear in big or small businesses.

Sometimes we can’t see the forest for the trees. It’s so common because we grasp at the low hanging fruit instead of mastering climbing the tree.  Small picture thinking is about survival and the daily grind of business usually leads to that small-minded myopia. And when CEOs lose big-picture style navigation, customers and employees can’t find their way. The confusion is exhausting, painful and often depressing.

Today then, we want to describe big picture thinking and what happens when leaders adopt small-minded practices.

For a travel company, small-minded thinking generates serious costs and damages:

1. Increased Operational Costs

A focus on trivial cost-saving measures that may not yield significant financial benefits and prevents investing in strategic initiatives that drive growth.

2. Missed Growth Opportunities

A narrow focus limits the ability to see and seize growth opportunities from new markets, niches, and marketing channels.

3. Inefficiency and Waste

Small-minded thinking encourages slavery to overly complex procedures or redundant steps, which waste time and resources and slow down overall productivity.

4. Reduced Competitive Advantage

Not focusing enough on strategic planning may struggle to keep up with competitors who are more focused on innovation and market trends.

5. Lower Employee Morale

When leaders or managers are overly focused on minutiae, it leads to frustration, discouragement, low morale, poor productivity which then leads to higher turnover, lost talent/experience, and increased human resource costs.

6. Stunted Innovation

Small-minded thinking can suppress innovation by prioritizing incremental changes over transformative ideas. Investing too much in minor adjustments rather than bold, innovative solutions can hinder a company’s ability to adapt and grow.

7. Strategic Misalignment

Obsessing on minor details that don’t resonate to the company’s long-term vision results in missed strategic objectives.

8. Delayed Decision-Making

Overemphasis on details retards decision-making slowing your response to market changes or new revenue opportunities.

9. Customer Dissatisfaction

A focus on minor details rather than understanding and addressing major customer needs can result in products or services that don’t fully meet customer expectations.

All the reasons you already know about, but just need a polite reminder!

Big Picture Thinking Will Lead to Market Leadership

You, the business owner are responsible for the business strategy and how it connects with the market to become a market leader with sustainable success. The connection between the product and the customer is laser-clear to you, thus it becomes so for your staff too. And the customer picks up the clarity as well.

We don’t have to go far for examples such as Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Jensen Huang, and Jeff Bezos. All of them took small companies, facing bankruptcy at some point, and turned them around and into Mag7 companies with near trillion dollar valuations and comprising most of the stock market. Huang dropped the video game chips and moved to meet the bigger opportunity of AI business solutions.  He’s envisioned and created an entire business ecosystem that will make microchip sales paltry in comparison.

Once you’re in that open-minded, big-picture frame of mind, you’re able to see all the inputs and steps needed.

Adapting Sometimes Means Audacity

A successful travel company, sometimes has to take risks to climb.

Sustainable success means seeing the big picture and repositioning to capture new opportunities and survive whatever scenario happens. Adaptability is important, but so is audacity which the entrepreneurs above had. And it’s not about confidence, because I doubt Musk or Huang were all that confident. They had optimism and audacity.

Is Small-Minded Routine Thinking Bringing your Business Down?

Are these circumstances leading you down the wrong path?

  • financial, personnel and time constraints — immediate pressures come to the foreground to encourage the adoption of weak, dissolving solutions that wash down the drain.
  • immediate sales goals — demand to hit monthly sales targets without reference to whether the business model and marketing strategy are helping or hindering.
  • short-term successes — encourages immediate rewards and demotion of longer-term rewards and planning.
  • lack of marketing orientation — selling our stuff now, instead of marketing to what they actually want.
  • knowledge gaps – a lack of marketing knowledge and strategic planning means important longer-term objectives aren’t visible or understood.
  • lack of business training — not trained to be geared to long-term thinking and the steady business activities that build success.
  • risk aversion — big-picture solutions and supportive projects are viewed as risky, impractical, unproven, and the payoff is seemingly too far way.
  • obsession with tactical execution — a focus on everyday issues and actions leaves no time for big-picture thinking.
  • lack of data — poor-quality analytics offers obscure views and inadequate/reliable insights into customer’s demands, customer experience, performance, as well as market demand characteristics.
  • poor communications — a lack of discussion over progress to long-term goals means employees/contractors feel no connection to the company nor are aware of the LTV they may help create.

5 Easy Steps on the Path to the Big Picture View

Letting go of the small picture details likely is a good first step.

Arguably, the most important is to look ahead 5 years at what your travel business could be — a market leader in your niche. Then you must align with that vision, and let go of doesn’t contribute to that success.

1. Define a Clear Vision and Strategy

  • Articulate a Vision: Develop a compelling vision and a statement about where the company aims to be in the future. Your vision should be inspiring and audacious to guide new reach and growth.
  • Strategic Goals: Set clear, long-term goals on market expansion, revenue targets, and customer experience.

2. Develop and Retain Unique Talent

  • Talent Acquisition: Hire versatile and uniquely talented professionals who add value, feel the joy of travel and will align with your company’s vision to contribute continuously.
  • Training and Development: Invest in supporting your talent, providing resources, training and incentives to ensure they enhance their skills.

3. Understand Market Trends and Consumer Behavior

  • Market Research: Conduct thorough research and brand research to understand current travel trends, consumer preferences, and emerging travel market demand.

4. Focus on Customer Experience

  • Personalization: Tailor travel experiences to meet individual customer needs and preferences.
  • Feedback and Improvement: Capture customer feedback to identify areas for improvement and ensure high satisfaction levels.

5. Visualize a Powerful, Desirable Brand

  • Brand Identity: Get a brand consultant’s help to develop an improved, recognizable brand identity that reflects customer’s values and makes your agency “the only one for them.”
  • Marketing and Promotion: Boost your marketing strategy by investigating new content approaches, events, and marketing messaging.

Building a New Team – Who Love the Big Picture

You can also add new staff/contractors who are mindful of the big picture. The imagination, ambition and wonder of someone means they won’t lose sight of your company’s real goals.

Who better to help you build out new content for that new market segment without being trapped by past views of what your business is or could be.  This is where an outside consultant/producer can be great. They’re not weighed down or disabled by the past and actually do see your company as a potential market leader.

With that view, your business model can be reassessed, target market reviewed, and new marketing goals set.

Consultant/Producers with a Growth Mindset

You and your company are worth it. Honor thyself as they say. Because your esteem, confidence and imagination are the most important asset in your business.  A new hire such as myself means you’re bringing in someone who sees the big picture and is oriented to help you succeed, not just go through the motions. Of course, it’s an iterative thing where we support each other’s growth and improvement.

I love big picture thinking and the audacity to think we can climb to the top.  You can reach me, Gord, at 416 998 6246.