Now I am not talking about photography here. When I say Zoom in the corporate reference, I mean perspective. The ability to look at things from a macro lens sometimes and a wide angle lens sometimes. Oops! Another photography reference 🙂 In our personal life as well, we are sometimes needed to focus on smaller things and at others to step back and look at the big picture. Same goes for the corporate world. In our daily grind we focus on tasks, calls, meetings, answering emails and sometimes just getting through the day! It is equally essential to step back and gauge where this is going, to zoom out and look at the surroundings.
- Self introspection is a great idea. Takes a real discipline to break away from the mundane tasks and look at what you were meant to do versus what you are doing. I have not managed to do it as well as I would have liked. If you can manage to do it, kudos to you! Let me know how you manage 😉
- The best way to Zoom out is to have a dialogue with your boss. It serves as a good course correction and if you follow the advise then you are saved from a rude shock during the appraisals. Your manager will be able to point out the pieces you are missing out on. So in effect, the manager does what you set out to do in point 1 above.
- Take a break. A real break. Not the kind of break where you are replying to emails, whatsapping your team and doing calls at odd hours. Your organisation can function without you for the 3 day or 7 day break you take. A break in the routine will allow you to come back refreshed and then start anew. This restarting can be fashioned differently now.
- Another aspect of zooming out is in your work itself. When you tackle tasks, look at projects are you looking at things with a fine toothed comb always? If you are, then you would build a great reputation as a stickler for detail. While this works well in the initial years of our career to establish credibility, the later years would need you to display vision. Developing such an ability will have to be a conscious effort!
