Top-down vs. Bottom-up

Today I would like to talk about ‘top-down’ versus ‘bottom-up’.

Top down is we look things from the top, design from the top, start doing from the top, and then we go into detailed stuff. Bottom up is we do the tiniest things from the bottom, get to know more from the bottom, make the process from the bottom, and then we find we have done great things.

Comparing these two, I prefer top down.

Let me give you an example. In 1942, the U.S. government started ‘Manhattan Project’. It was a typical top down. The target is simple, to build a great bomb to end the war. So the U.S. government gathered the smartest scientists all over the world. By clear designing, careful structuring, strictly following the plan, the first atomic bomb was built in only three years, and it finished the World War II. Before that, the atomic bomb was nothing but an imagination. If by bottom up, to accumulate what we have, fight island by island, little by little, God knows how many years more the war would last, and how many soldiers would sacrifice.

Maybe you feel everything goes smoothly from the bottom, but it is much easier, quicker and more possible to achieve great things when we look big and think big.

To put it simply, I love top down. Don’t wait, start drawing our big pictures right now!