Concepts and Capers and Details, Oh My!

What can you do when you're in the middle of an energetic conversation with someone and you suddenly realize that you're approaching the subject from opposite sides of the fence? This is where understanding of the Hierarchy of Ideas is helpful. Think of a ladder; the bottom rung is the category of Details. The top rung is the category of Concepts or “the big picture.” Another way to think of this is microcosm and macrocosm.   You can hit a conversational wall when one speaker is operating at the top rung of the ladder - focused on concepts, "the big picture" - and the other speaker is operating at the bottom rung, focused on details. You may want the same outcome but are using different mental strategies to work toward it.   Here's an example. Suppose that a Concepts person is working with the "big picture" idea of movement. To step down the rungs of the Hierarchy of Ideas ladder from Concepts to Details, you could use the following progression:   CONCEPTS  ->  Movement                       Transportation                       Conveyances (Buses, Cars, Planes, Trains)                       Cars                       Parts of Cars                       Wheels                       Hub Caps DETAILS   ->    Lug Nuts   As Personality Styles Details people and Concepts people can have different ways of mental processing and communicating and even very different styles of living. Concepts People A person who is more comfortable working with concepts is more of an Imaginer, a Visionary, a "Big Picture" thinker, an Innovator. These are the people who come up with fresh ideas without necessarily worrying about whether or not they are practical. They can imagine the abstract, the "impossible". They can appear unrealistic and dreamers. Yes, on both accounts! Being an unrealistic dreamer is their strength. I'm a "Concepts First, Details Second" person. When talking or learning about a subject, I want to start with the largest possible description of the issue - the abstraction - and work my way down (in my mind) to the details. I do not start with the details, or in the middle of a process, and this has on some occasions caused friction with folks who like to work with "Details First". When talking with them, it feels like starting a car in second gear, and my mental gearshift jams and starts smoking. My brain sorts information like a college term paper; I start with a mission statement or thesis, present supporting points in order of importance, and wrap up with a summary. A conversation that starts out in medias res or with the fine details throws me into a tailspin! While my process is very structured and detailed oriented, which would seem to fit into the "details" category, it starts from the big picture and progresses toward details. Details People Details people are the engineers, the implementers, and oftentimes, the Realists. They work best hands-on, with the nuts and bolts. They want the specifications. They want concreteness, exactness, and quantitative measurements of success. They may not want to spend a lot of time discussing an end result, or even more conceptually, the ultimate benefit of the end result. They want to get in there with their hands and start working with the pieces. As Conversational Styles You may have found yourself in a situation where Person A wants to ONLY talk about the idea, the goal, the end result. He wants to know why, not how. "Why is this helping us? Why should we take on this project? Why invest the time and money? What's the net gain?" Uh oh. Person B ONLY wants to talk about the how. He or she is focused on the steps, the process and the implementation, not necessarily the overarching concept. Whose style is better? Neither. Both types are valuable. Both contribute their strengths to an objective, but they can find it frustrating to work together because of their different processing styles. You can almost imagine a cartoon where two people have such grossly different strategies that they erupt in anger: "Psycho!" "Bean counter!" Before your own conversation gets to this point, stop and take a deep breath. Acknowledge your differing styles and that you're using different "languages" to work toward the same goal. Remember that it can be just as tough to get Concepts people to talk about details as it can be to get Details people to stretch their thinking all the way out to The Big Picture. To help a Concepts person to think/talk more about Details Go into the future. Use an "as if" presupposition and chat about the objective as if it has already been realized. "Wow! Let's toast to the success of this project - so how did we achieve it? Where did we start? What steps or milestones did we hit? And how did we wrap everything up?"   To help a Details person to think/talk more about Concepts "Great strategy! So what is the final result? What does this project help us to achieve, and why is that a good thing? Why do we want to do that? Why are our customers concerned about that? And if that concern is satisfied, what then will they have or feel?" This line of questioning moves the person's thinking out of the details, the how, and into the why and what need is ultimately satisfied, or the "highest intention" of the project.   To wrap up … Details people and Concepts people can sometimes bang heads not because they don't agree but because they approach work, and life, from vastly different mindsets. Think of them as two sides of a coin. Their opposing strategies are both helpful. They both contribute something valuable to an initiative. When they take the time to learn about each other's unique thinking styles, they can collaborate more harmoniously and achieve more than they would have separately. 2009-02-23T01:04:40Z

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concepts-and-capers-and-details-oh-my

2009-02-24T22:14:08Z

Using the Hierarchy of Ideas for Better Collaboration

Concepts and Capers and Details, Oh My!

2009-02-24T22:14:08Z