Work snippets - the builder's metaphor

The Builder's Metaphor - my interpretation of what it means

I attended a company workshop some weeks ago on next year's strategy, and unsurprisingly one of the participants raised the 'three builder metaphor'. One of the favourite metaphors of all times, which goes as follows:

There were 3 builders working on a cathedral site back in the middle ages. The bishop walked by and asked: what's in you mind? The first builder replied: "I am thinking how to lay the bricks". The second replied: "I am thinking how to complete the wall". The third replied "I am thinking how to complete a cathedral". The first builder ended up laying bricks for his work life, the second become a good site supervisor, while the third climbed the career ladder and became an architect masterminding many great buildings.

The wisdom from this metaphor - be the third builder, think about the vision and the long term.

It's an easy metaphor with a nice wisdom, one which you feel you understood immediately and could retell to other people with ease. Nonetheless, I used to struggle to apply the wisdom at work or in life. What does it ACTUALLY MEAN "be the 3rd builder"? What are the changes to our principles, thinkings and actions? What is it like to mind the vision? If everyone is like the third builder, wouldn't productivity collapse? Easy to say, hard to enact.

After spending time in different industries with different job roles, I am starting to GET the meaning (maybe). I started to notice that a lot of colleagues focus on doing work without prioritisation. They are not in the pure processing job roles (e.g. cashiers, letter sorters) whose jobs ARE to perform certain processes in the same way as the first builder's brick laying. They are software engineers, yet their pure incentives is 'I have completed this engineering requirement as per spec'. Is this part of the spec top priority? Did you complete it with the deadline in mind? Is the engineer quality 'good enough but not much time spent' or 'perfected by spending lots and lots of time'? These are not questions they have in mind. They are viewing their role like the first builder - I have DONE my work and here is the output, now let's go home.

Then there are colleagues who are thinking the above question, and so their work is prioritised, the deadline pressure is felt & responded to, and more thoughts are put into the trade off between time and quality. They are like the second builder, and they are saying 'I have DELIVERED the project as per requirements, now let's go home'.

Finally, there are colleagues who are are thinking how other projects or other divisions in the company would be affected as their project is delivered. At the same time, they are thinking about whether people are developing themselves and how the team culture is unfolding in the process. Alongside their project delivery work, their own teams and other teams are co-ordinated and elevated in the process. They are saying 'I have DELIVERED A STATE CHANGE for the company, now everyone can feel better'.

The different between the first and second builder is obvious to a lot of people - 'doing' is good, but 'delivering' as per requirements and constraints is even more important. The difference between the second and third builder is more obscure - it is about recognising that what you do have an impact on other components in terms of other projects and in terms of teams' culture and personal development, and account for that when planning.

Now that I have an interpretation, I will try to act like the third builder. It's not about 'let's talk about grand visions', it's about arranging your work to allow grand visions to be realised