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People often talk about the ‘bigger picture’, often meaning the strategy of the organization or overall purpose. You need to know how what you are doing is contributing to the ‘bigger picture’ and moving the organization closer to that final goal.

It is really easy to simply accept any instruction from your superiors as being ‘right’: not something to question, but something just to do, even if you can’t see its relevance.

It isn’t necessarily a criticism of your boss if you question an instruction; it may be simply that you want to understand how the instruction fits into the overall purpose of the organization. Understanding this increases your commitment to doing it and doing it well, whereas if you are doing something that, quite literally, has no point you will quickly become disillusioned. Likewise, it is valuable to recognize how doing something that doesn’t benefit the organization is potentially valueless to them, therefore making you (or at least your job) unnecessary.

What is important is to ensure that you check the relevance to the bigger picture in a way that doesn’t seem to be critical of your boss. Opposite are some tips on how to do this.

one minute wonder You may have to do a mix of tasks, some of which are relevant to the bigger picture and some of which are irrelevant. Make sure you know the level of importance to attach to the irrelevant ones.

1 Approach your boss in private, not in front of other people, when you want to check the relevance of the tasks requested of you.

2 Ask ‘open’ questions, which cannot be answered simply with a “Yes” or “No”. Ask how, why, what, where and who questions rather that do/does, will, can. For example, “I need to understand how this contributes to the departmental sales activity” or “Where does this feed into the manufacturing process?”

3 If necessary ‘sell’ the benefits to the manager of taking the time to explain this: “I want to do this job really well for you, so can you explain…” or “If I understand the value of this task, I can ensure that it gets the priority it deserves…”

4 If the task isn’t actually relevant to the bigger picture, but the boss still wants it done, ask what its priority is in relation to the tasks you have that are relevant.

5 Thank your boss for explaining it. You’ll quickly ‘train’ your boss to ensure that you only get relevant tasks without asking!

Knowing how your tasks relate to the bigger picture helps both you and your boss to organize the workload.