Thinking Big

When Steve Jobs died less than two weeks ago, the world lost a brilliant American inventor and entrepreneur. His vision impacted so many aspects of our personal and professional lives. It’s hard for some of us to imagine not having a smart phone or a tablet computer. His versions of this technology, the iPhone and iPad, remain the best in class.

Jobs, who began his inventing in a garage, had an uncanny ability to foresee or set the next trend in technology. In that regard he was similar to National Hockey League hall-of-fame player, Wayne Gretzky, whose success was forged by skating to locations on the ice where he anticipated the puck would be. Like Jobs, he thrived by anticipating the future with astonishing accuracy.

Many of today’s leaders seem to lack any notion of the bigger picture. Political leaders are mostly preoccupied with protecting the familiar or status quo so their power isn’t diminished. Business leaders regularly respond like sheep by mimicking the products and services of competitors. Few demonstrate true innovation and vision about how to make a product or deliver a service that is unique or remarkable.

The unimaginative Occupy Wall Street protestors portend a dismal future for our nation. They have chosen to pit one class of society against another mostly to fuel their own selfish purposes. No one is thinking big about the future, embracing an economic system that rewards innovation and hard work. Instead they simply complain about those who have more than they do and openly proclaim their rights to free stuff provided at the coercive behest of a government that already has too much power.

When a problem is enormous, leaders would do well to dream about big solutions. This often involves dismantling processes, thinking, and systems that don’t serve us any longer. We all know how hard it is to break an old habit. That is the dilemma we face in our organizations and in our nation. Without a cohesive, committed effort toward thinking bigger we will succumb to the smallness of our selfish interests and nothing much will change.

I hope the death of Steve Jobs won’t signal an end to big thinking. Our current economic circumstances require more than pointing fingers. Who will step up to point the way?