Really Looking at the Sky

I spent a lot time alone out of doors last weekend, and as such was afforded the time to look at the sky.  Not just gaze it, or glance at it and move on, but really focus on it.  The resulting interaction spawned some insights, from the nature of how clouds build and dissipate to the amount of flight traffic in this seemingly remote locale.  It also took me back to time as a child, where lying on the grass and pondering the sky and all that it held was a viable use of time.

What struck me in all of this was how much I noticed by just taking the time and merely looking up.  While I looked at the sky every day, I saw very, very little.  However, by taking time and not just looking, but noticing, I was presented with a wealth of insight.  Insight that was always readily available to me, if I had just bothered to take the time.

In our organizations, we're surrounded by the familiar - the same people, projects, processes, and performance.  But in that organizational "sky" is a lot of really good and really insightful information.  It could come in the form of a teammate's communication style, or the insight provided by a customer's complaint, or in the way meetings start, or in a million other things.  

But insights are all around us, just as the sky is.

We just need to take some time every once and a while and really look.  What's out there for us to know might surprise us.