Everything in the world can be seen to be made up of details. Everything in the world is a whole and part of a bigger picture. We usually have a preference for one side of this story – the big picture or the detail.

Picture something or someone precious to you. Is it one or a few features that is precious? Or is it the whole thing or person rather than the details? Close your eyes and picture the room you are now in: is it the overall shape and size or the details that you remember?

In the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (based on Carl Jung’s work in Psychological Types) these preferences are called “Sensation” (the details) and “intuition” (the whole picture).

This is important because it helps us relate to others and also helps us in understanding what is going on.

  • It helps us understand others. Have you ever been in one of those arguments where the people seem to be talking past each other? It could be because they just don’t see things in the same way. For some people (the sensates) it is the details that have meaning, while for others (the intuitives) the details are trivial and it is the big picture that is real.

If you are in the midst of one of those arguments it is well worth stopping and asking yourself about both the details and the big picture. Are both being taken account? Or are they being seen as if they were in competition with each other?

  • It helps us understand what is going on. If you prefer the big picture like me it will help to have someone check over the details of what you do (then it is less likely a map will slip through with the road drawn as going off in the wrong direction – it looked fine to me (details aren’t that important after all!). If you like the details then it will help to communicate the big picture too – this is especially important if something goes wrong; with a sense of the big picture people will have a sense of what to do or who to go to (they won’t just be stuck because there part of the project has stopped).

Taking account of both the details and the big picture with others and give us a better sense of what is going on around us.