Wholes and Parts

I remember sitting in Mrs. Johnson’s classroom in 8th grade. The room was hot, my chair had one leg that was shorter than the others and the hour I sat in there seemed to go on for days. Mrs. Johnson spent the better part of a year breaking biology down for all of us in that classroom. We learned the smallest of parts—neurons, mitochondria—in an endless process of lecture, reading, cramming, test-taking and forgetting.

Mrs. Johnson definitely had an appreciation for the parts.

The tendency of business has always been to look at the “parts” separately. As an example, we treat marketing and sales as two different departments—pieces—when they are really just part of one bigger process of creating relationships with customers.

We do the same thing in training. We break it down to the pieces—the minute parts that we have to get across. We get immersed in all the details we have to cover. Oftentimes, we are so immersed in the detail that we forget what the bigger idea is that we are sharing. Then we find ourselves, once again, in that familiar process of lecture, reading, cramming, test-taking and forgetting.

We can only fully understand the parts when we understand the whole. Think about how you share the bigger picture. Even when you are sharing the most detailed content, there is always a bigger whole that the details serve. Start with the whole, then go to the parts.

Be well,
Jeanine O'Neill-Blackwell
President/CEO, 4MAT 4BUSINESS