| Solve Tough Management Problems with These Picture Books | |
| Part 2: Getting Employees to Focus on the "Big Picture" | |
Focus on what's important with "a day, a dog"If your employees have trouble with defining the real issues and tend to get caught up in minutia, have them read Gabrielle Vincent's "a day, a dog" (compare prices). The story is simple and all too realistic. A dog is thrown out of a car and abandoned. After vainly trying to catch up with the car, the dog darts into the street,causing a car accident. People are injured. The cars catch fire. Emergency vehicles and personnel arrive. During all of this, the dog is a forlorn observer. After wandering by the water and into town, the dog searches for food in back alleys and is turned away. At the end, he finds what seems to be a friend, a small child.
What is not included is significant. There are no words in the book. None are needed. The simple sketches tell the story. There is no color other than black. Other colors are not needed. The focus is always on the dog, with minimal artwork for the setting of the story.
What does this all mean in management? When we ask children to retell a story, we teach them to look at character, setting, problem, and resolution. When solving management problems, these are the same things we need to look at. However, we need to strip the problem down to its essential elements and put the focus where it belongs, just as Vincent has done in this story.
"Zoom" in on the "Big Picture"Istvan Banyai's "Zoom" (compare prices) is a bright and colorful wordless book that is sure to amuse your employees while reinforcing the importance of standing back and looking at the "Big Picture" The book opens on a closeup of a bumpy red object. The next page shows the object from a distance and we see it is the comb on a rooster. Moving still further back, we see that the rooster is on the windowsill of a small house. But, wait! The next picture, still further back, shows the house, the village it is in, AND a big hand. As each picture provides a view from further away, we find out the hand belongs to a girl who is playing with the village, which is a toy.
Later, we find out that the picture of the girl playing with the village is on the cover of a magazine being read by a boy who is sitting by the pool on a cruise ship. Still later, we discover that the picture of the boy reading the magazine by the pool is an ad on the side of a bus. This book is perfect for the employee who says s/he is looking at the "Big Picture" but instead of taking a broad enough view of the situation has tunnel vision. (Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers, 1998. ISBN: 0140557741)
Since these are also excellent children's books, be sure and take them home and share them with your children. You might be surprised at their interpretation of the stories.
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