At the International Dyslexia Association meetings we had a nice opportunity to talk with a variety of individuals about big picture thinking, or thinking beyond the box. Many successful dyslexic innovators seem particularly gifted at being able to manage complex fields that require massive amounts of dynamically changing information, partial or misleading information (decision-making under uncertainty), and diverse forms of knowledge and experience. Field like this embrace almost any innovative business, science, or technology, or financial market.
What makes one an excellent big picture thinker? - a drive to question and to understand (whys and hows), and strengths in inference and analysis - to read between the lines or see the "negative space" or what is not being told or said explicitly.
Paul Orfalea (dyslexic CEO of Kinko's and author of "Copy This!") - explained big picture thinking with an example of a first-time home buyer. If a big picture thinker wants to know about how to buy a house, he (or she) won't be satisfied with a brief soundbyte - like find a real estate agent. He wants to know what are the issues about buying a house - what's the larger system - how do the realtor, the seller, make their money (the economics of home buying), what are the pros and cons of when and what type of house one buys?
It's easy to see that this type of thinking is well-suited to complex real world environments, but not necessarily off-the-rack education. The young big picture thinker may be like Baudelaire's albatross (poem below). Their difference in personality, temperament, and thinking style that will be so important for them in the future, may bog them down for years in their childhood.
What are the best learning environments or training grounds for young big-picture thinkers? How do we channel the fire but also avoid an uncontrollable burn? The answers will be different for different students, but alternatives and options have life-or-death consequences for some.
Excerpt from Abilities article: "In Orfalea’s case, his learning style gave him the ability to see the big picture, the overall vision, and not get mired in minutiae. That can be a wonderful skill for a businessman with a flow of bright ideas."
From Copy This!: "“Whenever I felt down, whenever I started wondering what homeless shelter I would die in, [my mother] would buck me up by telling me: you know, Paul, the A students work for the B students, the C students run the companies, and the D students dedicate the buildings.
“Don’t get me wrong. I’m not suggesting parents say this to a child who’s getting A’s and B’s. But the child who can’t play by the same rules needs to know there’s so much more to life than what goes down on a report card."
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The Albatross
Often to pass the time on board, the crew
will catch an albatross, one of those big birds
which nonchalently chaperone a ship
across the bitter fathoms of the sea.
Tied to the deck, this sovereign of space,
as if embarrassed by its clumsiness,
pitiably lets its great white wings
drag at its sides like a pair of unshipped oars.
How weak and awkward, even comical
this traveller but lately so adoit -
one deckhand sticks a pipestem in its beak,
another mocks the cripple that once flew!
The Poet is like this monarch of the clouds
riding the storm above the marksman's range;
exiled on the ground, hooted and jeered,
he cannot walk because of his great wings.
-- Charles Baudelaire
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Meet "kinko" Paul Orfalea
The Big Picture: Thinking the unthinkable, predicting the unpredictable
Systems Thinking and Innovation
[minstrels] The Albatross -- Charles Baudelaire
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