Detail-oriented thinkers can be easily infuriated by global thinkers. There is one great example that describes how global thinkers and detail-oriented thinkers have different perspectives of the same situation. We’re talking about the story of a German bank manager, Hilmar Kopper, at the beginning of the 1990s. As a result of a large German corporation’s bankruptcy, this manager’s bank had lost 500 million dollars. Kopper said that “it was just peanuts”. His remark prompted many people to look in their own wallets and their bank accounts, and they found a lot less money there, to which they wouldn’t refer to as “peanuts”. There was great outcry all across the country. No one was willing to accept what he said. With a single word, Kopper brought the nation into rage.
However, if you change your perspective and look at the total assets of the bank, you can better understand his comment.
* Peanuts Informal A very small amount of money; a trifling sum.
* In 1994, Hilmar Kopper (ex-Deutsche Bank Manager) called unpaid craftsman bills ( the Jürgen Schneider collapse) amounting to millions of dollars “peanuts”. Craftsmen, who had to close their companies because of these “peanuts”, showed their lack of understanding of his terminology. Meanwhile, “peanuts” has become a cult word.
How much money is Peanuts for an individual who’s working for a salary and how much for a local bank manager? Going further, what is “Peanuts” for a manager of a global bank? Even though, it can be taken as a spoilt and rude way thinking, when referring to a fairly big amount of money as peanuts, it is just another point of view and not necessarily a wrong one. What one may be earning and collecting an entire lifetime can be an insignificant sum for others.
Without the intention to judge what is right or wrong, we wanted to shed light on differences that exist among detail-oriented and global oriented people, and the emotions and conflicts that these differences often cause.
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