People Aim Only as High as They Can See
Some of life’s biggest lessons don’t come from boardrooms or books.
Sometimes they come from a Social Science homework.
It had been one of those exhausting weeks at work.
One of my senior engineer was designing a critical module for our product. We had already gone through three design review meetings and I was still unhappy.
The design wasn’t exactly wrong.
It just wasn’t right.
Every review ended the same way.
“This solves the module, but it doesn’t fit into the overall solution.”
“You’re optimizing one component, but what about the customer journey?”
“How will this work when we add the next set of features?”
By the end of the third review, I was frustrated.
I kept asking myself,
“He’s experienced and technically sound. Why is he unable to come up with a design that fits the bigger solution?”
That evening, I reached home mentally exhausted.
Just as I was hoping for a quiet cup of tea, my son walked in with his Social Science book.
“Mom, can you help me? This chapter is so boring. I can’t focus.”
Now, between the two of us, he wasn’t the only one who disliked Social Science.
When I was in school, it was probably my least favorite subject too.
So my first instinct was to escape.
I smiled and said,
“Read the chapter first. Wherever you don’t understand something, I’ll explain.”
Now, like most kids, he had already decided that Social Science was invented solely to test his patience. He was reading the chapter with the enthusiasm of someone waiting for a software update to finish.
The chapter was about Employment.
One boring topic had found another boring topic.
To make things interesting, I asked him,
“So tell me, why do people work?”
Without thinking for even two seconds, he answered confidently,
“To earn money and take care of themselves and their family.”
I smiled.
“Correct…
…but that’s only half the story.”
That caught his attention.
I closed the book and continued.
“A doctor doesn’t just earn money. A doctor keeps people healthy.
A teacher doesn’t just earn money. A teacher shapes future generations.
A farmer feeds millions.
An engineer builds solutions people use every day.
Every honest profession creates value for someone else.”
I continued,
“So when millions of people do their jobs well, they’re not just earning money. They’re creating value, helping other people, paying taxes, creating opportunities and collectively strengthening the country’s economy.”
Then I added with a smile,
“So employment isn’t just about feeding your family. It’s also about contributing to society and contributing to the Nation’s economy. That’s why every citizen should aspire to become someone who creates value. An unemployed person is a liability to society and the nation.”
He became unusually quiet.
Then came the question I wasn’t prepared for.
“Mom.. then how does your job help society? You sit in front of a laptop all day. What exactly do you contribute?”
Children have an incredible talent.
They can ask one innocent question that makes you question your entire career.
I laughed.
“Fair question.”
“I build software products and solutions. Those products and solutions help businesses solve problems, work faster, make better decisions and serve their customers better. When businesses become more productive, they grow. Growing businesses create more jobs, generate more income, pay more taxes, and contribute more to the country’s economy.”
“So even though I may never meet the people who ultimately benefit from my work, my work still creates value for them.”
I could see he was genuinely interested now.
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So I asked him a question.
“Now you decide… how much do you want to contribute to society?”
He looked puzzled.
I explained,
“Most people first choose a profession and then hope they’ll make a difference.”
“I think it should be the other way around.”
“First decide the impact you want to create. Then choose the profession that allows you to create that impact. Finally, build the skills required to become exceptional at it.”
To make the idea more concrete, I told him about N. R. Narayana Murthy.
“Mr. Murthy and six of his friends were software professionals, just like me.”
“They could have continued writing software for someone else.”
“But they wanted to contribute on a much larger scale.”
“So they founded Infosys.”
“Today, Infosys has created employment for hundreds of thousands of people, contributed enormously to India’s economy, inspired countless entrepreneurs and helped establish India as a global technology powerhouse.”
“Their technical skills were valuable.”
“But what truly made the difference was that they had a much bigger vision of the impact they wanted to create.”
I noticed something had changed.
He stopped thinking about a profession as just a job.
He started thinking about it as a contribution.
I never told him what he should become.
I simply showed him a bigger picture.
The next morning, while driving to the office, something suddenly clicked.
The problem with my senior engineer was exactly the same.
He wasn’t thinking about the bigger picture.
He was focusing only on the module assigned to him.
Then I realized something even more uncomfortable.
Throughout all three design reviews, we had spent hours discussing what we were building.
We had hardly spent any time discussing why we were building it.
We never talked about how customers would use the solution.
We never discussed the business problem it was solving.
We never explored the value it would create.
We never looked at where the product was heading and the features that would likely be added in the future.
The next day, I called him for another discussion.
This time, there was no architecture diagram on the screen for the first thirty minutes.
Instead, we talked about our customers.
How they would use the product.
The problems they faced today.
How our solution would make their lives easier.
How this module fit into the complete solution.
And what the product roadmap looked like over the next few releases.
For the first time, he wasn’t designing a module.
He was designing part of a vision.
A couple of days later, he came back with a completely new design.
It was elegant.
It solved the immediate problem.
It aligned perfectly with the overall architecture.
It was scalable for future roadmap features.
It was, quite simply, the design I had been hoping to see from the very beginning.
His technical ability hadn’t changed in two days.
His perspective had.
That week taught me one of the most valuable leadership lessons of my career.
“People aim only as high as they can see. Show them the bigger picture and the impact they can create and they’ll set bigger goals. Show only a small part, and they’ll settle for smaller ambitions.”
Whether you’re leading a team, mentoring someone, teaching a child or even explaining a school lesson, don’t just tell people what to do.
Help them understand why it matters.
Because when people see the bigger picture, they don’t just produce better work.
They become capable of achieving things they never imagined.
