Super power: Flying between 10,000 feet and 10 feet

A super power for both life and career is to be able to both zoom out to think of the full and big picture, and to zoom in to define and execute on concrete details. 

During annual plannings at my previous companies, teams defined and shared high level strategy and key goals/results (OKRs) for the year. At my current company, we go a step further and define specific projects, timelines and staffing gantt chart. It takes more effort and feels "non-agile" to plan that far ahead, but after the initial skepticism, I find this exercise immensely useful as it forces me and my team to think of details and come up with a practical plan. 

In my personal life, I am guilty of spending way more time overthinking, contemplating 10,000 ft philosophies and frameworks on life and career. But what actually creates tangible positive change are light thinking, followed by simple, concrete plans and decisive execution. For e.g.: If you want to improve your health, spending a day researching on exercise and diet and then actually start doing it the next day, works far better than deeply researching health, best exercises, best diets etc. and never acting on it. Producing tangible outputs quickly makes it more fun and has the domino effect of learning what works and doing more. 

If you operate only at 10,000ft, you risk becoming a theoretical and impractical philosopher. If you operate only at 10ft, you risk making mistakes and missing opportunities. 

The "Lean Startup" model proposes a healthy and productive middle - quickly and continuously iterate between 10,000ft and 10ft, without getting stuck or being wrong in either state. As shown in the diagram below, start with concrete examples and observations, abstract into a framework, then specify concrete ideas, execute a good first version, revisit framework and redo the loop. 

“A good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week.”