Don't Just See The Black Dot

In his thirty-five years with the United Nations system, Kofi Annan has come to be known as an evenhanded man with an ability to see parts and the whole at the same time.  It is this quality that made him one of the more popular executives in the United Nations.

He recalls an unforgettable lesson learned in Ghana at age seventeen: One day our headmaster walked into the classroom and put up a broad sheet of paper with a small black dot in one corner.  "Boys," he asked, "what do you see?"

All of us shouted in unison, "A black dot!"

Then he said, "So not a single one of you saw the large white sheet of paper?  Don't go through life with that attitude."

- "The Peacemaker," Newsweek(December 1996)