Architect Christopher Wren designed St. Paul's Cathedral in London (one of the world's most beautiful buildings) after the great fire of 1666. Upon occasion, he toured the construction site and asked the workers to describe what they were doing. Those who were bored and tired responded by saying, "I'm laying bricks" or "I'm carrying stones." One with a tad more energy said he guessed he was making a wall. But one worker, who was mixing cement, seemed cheerful and enthusiastic about his work. Asked what he was doing, he replied, "I'm building a magnificent cathedral."
Christopher Wren stumbled onto a secret that successful business owners, salespeople and entrepreneurs already know-if you want to achieve something big and magnificent, you have to think big and magnificent. Connecting to the larger purpose of the St. Paul's project changed the way the third brick mason saw his work, which in turn changed the way he laid his stone, which in turn produced a better final product. Thinking big-knowing the larger purpose for which you apply yourself at any given moment-always alters how you understand your contribution and role, leads to acting with greater focus, and produces better results.
Looking at the big picture is big business today. Just ask Steven Covey, author of the mega best seller, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People . He has made millions teaching people to "begin with the end in mind." You have to know where you want to go before you can make plans on how to get there. Or talk to Rick Warren, author of The Purpose-Driven Life , which has been the top-selling book in the world for the last two years. He examines the faith-based purposes of our existence and argues that how we answer these big questions impacts the little things we do every day.
The success of these books, along with many others in the same vein, suggests that people hunger to know how they fit into the larger scheme, to understand what impact their contributions make. And it's no different in the business world. Do you want to be a stone carrier, wall maker, or cathedral builder? The problem with small thinking-seeing yourself as a stone carrier-is that it limits what you can achieve and is rather demoralizing in the process. Simply laying bricks or carrying stones without any idea what they were to build left the first worker bored and fatigued. Although the third mason certainly wasn't building St. Paul's single-handedly, he knew that each stone he laid was part of hallowed ground where anxious young couples would wed, where grief-stricken mourners would find comfort, where average people would come week after week and find inspiration. Your willingness to wrestle with the bigger picture and your role within the larger context provides the means to see how to expand your role and adds greater value to your product or service.
In the 1990's, when I worked for Johnson & Johnson selling sterilization equipment in the medical field, I had to change the way I saw my product. When I thought of the sterilizer as a device that I had to persuade the hospital's purchasing agent to order, I was thinking small. When I reframed my product into the bigger picture, however, I saw it as an critical device that impacted not only the materials manager who might place the order, but also the surgeon who would perform the procedure, the nurse who would prep the operating room, the quality control manager who was responsible for the hospital's safety record, and even the individual who would undergo the surgery. That shift in mental focus increased my sense of ownership and enthusiasm in the product, and it motivated me to understand that I was actually serving a far greater number of people, and contributing in a far more important manner, than I had originally realized. I was then able to articulate the value proposition of our sterilizers more effectively to more people, which ultimately increased the demand and sky-rocketed my sales.
The bottom line is that thinking big didn't just give me a greater sense of fulfillment as a salesperson-it gave me significantly increased sales! Research shows that businesses, and people, who are the most enthusiastic about their real purpose and who find the greatest satisfaction in their role consistently achieve far greater business success than those who don't. Thinking big and magnificent leads to achieving big and magnificent.
Here are two actions you can take to immediately start thinking big:
1) Brainstorm all of the people you can think of who are impacted by the product or service you sell, directly and indirectly. List three ways you can articulate and position the value of your product to them in ways you haven’t previously done.
2) If you don’t have a “big picture” mission for your business or life, create one using one of the excellent resources already available (eg, Seven Habits, etc.). If you already have one, review it. Consider how your current sales and marketing strategies fit in with it and list two new ways you can reconnect with your business's magnificent purpose in a way that propels you to think bigger.
In the end, small thinking leads to a lack of fulfillment and poor business results. Big thinking leads to fulfillment and business success. So choose big thinking for big sales, big money, and big meaning!
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