The power of big thinking

From The Great Exhibition of 1851 to the London Olympics, big thinking has delivered some of this countries greatest achievements. But what has happened to this 'go big or go home' mentality? In our founder's latest Yorkshire Post column, we take a look at the phenomenon and make the case as to why bold is best. Read the full article below.

I was there in York when Sir Gary Verity stood on stage and announced that he was bringing the Tour de France to Yorkshire. There were no ifs and buts, no ‘we’ll try our best’. It was a fact: we’re going to make this happen. 

Say what you like about Welcome to Yorkshire and the leaders of the time, but nobody can be in any doubt that they dealt in big ideas. There was a palpable sense of scale when you visited their offices in Holbeck, and when they said they’d make something happen, it happened. 

Great Britain of course, has a long and proud tradition of delivering big ideas. Epoch defining moments that set out our stall on the world stage. The Great Exhibition of 1851 wasn’t done by halves. It wasn’t value engineered to within an inch of its life and (I’m betting) it didn’t take a month to make a simple decision. 

That exhibition – designed to set out what this country had and could offer the world – is still referenced in textbooks as an example of Britain leading on the world stage. It was outward looking, but confident in the country’s collective national abilities. Leading thinkers and doers of the day were there. Michael Faraday, Charlotte Brontë, Charles Darwin, Lewis Carroll, Karl Marx and Alfred Tennyson were all in attendance. The perfect blend of science, philosophy and culture, under one giant glass roof of the (at the time, temporary) Crystal Palace. Queen Victoria herself allegedly visited more than 30 times. 

But somewhere in the annals of time, the country lost its way. Big was replaced with complex, and innovative was replaced by expensive. This isn’t a new phenomenon, highlighted by big projects with bigger budgets and still bigger overspends. Right up until the last moment, the 21^st century ode to the Great Exhibition, the Millennium Dome, struggled to articulate what it was actually meant to be. 

There is enormous value in thinking big. The world appears dominated by doomsayers, whereas the reality is that the silent majority are doers. Rather than talk down the big ideas and tell ourselves ‘we can’t build things anymore’ or ‘it’s just too hard’, the kind of big thinking and can-do attitude that delivered events of magnitude and impact, such as the Tour de France in Yorkshire or the London Olympics, should be a badge of honour for the whole UK. 

The mayors of the North have announced their intention to bring the Olympics to this part of the world. This would be the easiest project in the world not to do, if we listened to those who talked our country down. In a climate of fiscal rules and a general mood of pessimism, you might think that hosting a major sporting event is a mad idea. 

Let’s talk less about ‘initial assessments’ and feasibility studies which invariably find reasons not to do things and instead embrace some of that Victorian spirit. If it can be done (and it certainly can), it should be done. 

In 2027, Le Tour will return to these shores, with boisterous Yorkshire crowds set to be replicated in the Tour de France Femmes race, which has stage starts or finishes in the great cities of Leeds and Sheffield. While the tone will be different to 2014, the ambition needs to remain. The public will play their part, but the big thinking mentality needs to extend to everyone involved. From the police motorcades marshalling the race, to the city and town leaders supporting it. This is bigger than any one individual or location and is the type of event we should be relishing. 

Many thought Gary Verity was mad when he announced he was bringing Le Tour to Yorkshire. Maybe he was. That conference centre in York was filled with a mixture of bemusement, excitement and glee.

It is only by pushing boundaries and challenging convention that we can reap the benefits.