You have the capacity to have a helicopter and a grass roots view on everything you do and three more levels in between; and you can learn to use it to your advantage. Scientific research into the human brain has found that thought processes happen on five levels. It’s no wonder, therefore, having been created by a human brain, the most effective theories and models follow this logic, too. From Jim Collins’ structure of the five level organisation to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, the brain finds anything easier to digest when it is matched to how it works.
Whether you are excellent at detail or great at the big picture, starting with clarity at level five will determine how quickly and easily you achieve your end-goal.
Anything that it easier on the brain means that information moves faster and is understood better. As brain-based concepts start to filter into improving company strategies, you can, intentionally, start adopting the five levels to improve your business. In fact, you can use the five levels to quickly understand any topic as well as apply to create a structure, strategy or result. Whether you are excellent at detail or great at the big picture, starting with clarity at level five will determine how quickly and easily you achieve your end-goal.
A legacy is long-term, enabling focus to shift from fire-fighting to creating long-sighted sustainability.
Level five is an intended legacy. It is powerful, positive and proud. This fires up the brain to work at creating new connections to build up towards making that legacy. Often companies confuse vision with mission. The moment you or your organisation is clear on it’s intended legacy, everything else falls into place and makes sense. A legacy is long-term, enabling focus to shift from fire-fighting to creating long-sighted sustainability. From a level five perspective, this long-sighted approach is critical to lasting the distance. From managing resources to creating strategic partnerships, eyes on the far distant prize wins the race. It’s the difference between training for a marathon and training for a sprint.
When you have a vivid concept based on an intended impact, which is also positive and healthy, it becomes compelling and energising.
Level five is the vision of a destination, it requires the most amount of imagination to project an intended outcome in your mind’s eye. This is critical for success because you can only be directed to achieving whatever it is you can imagine. Your brain needs a visual reference to point to, so that it can make sense of what to do next. Those references come from past experiences that it connects together to create new ideas. When you have a vivid concept based on an intended impact, which is also positive and healthy, it becomes compelling and energising. Imagine you need to attend a music concert in a town that is completely unfamiliar to you. Everything that enables you to figure out the logistics on how to get there will be dependent on understanding where the destination is. Visualising where you are going is the first step before working out how to get there. Once you have the route planned, you can then start to add how to make the journey comfortable and enjoyable for all travellers.
Your non-conscious mind is working all the time. Having a clear intended outcome will enable it to process accordingly without any conscious effort on your part.
Level five is clarity of the impact that you want to make. Your non-conscious mind is working all the time. Having a clear intended outcome will enable it to process accordingly without any conscious effort on your part. It automatically begins to filter out what isn’t useful for the goal. In an organisation, this allows activities to be aligned very easily, requiring minimal effort and discussion. Anything misaligned to the end-goal can then be identified and managed accordingly with much healthier discussions within teams.
Often referred to a meta-position to a challenge, remaining at your level five position before deciding how to react means you can be responsive instead of impulsive.
Level five is perspective. An arial view allows you to gain objectivity over dramatic reactivity in any situation. Often referred to a meta-position to a challenge, remaining at your level five position before deciding how to react means you can be responsive instead of impulsive. Not only does this reserve energy, it engages your rational thinking to create new solutions that turns challenges into beneficial outcomes.
Aligning to how your brain works to establish the level five context for everything you do inside and outside your work will improve your performance, gain you clarity and focus while minimising effort. Over time as your brain creates new thinking patterns, this will become your standard default pattern of thinking. You will be more productive in your thoughts, experience more positive feelings, behave more intentionally and in ways that achieve your intended outcomes.