Perspective:
“a particular attitude towards or way of regarding something; a point of view.”
One of the first things I do when working with a client is to find out their perspective of the world. What lens are they looking through? How do they view the world around them?
Perspective is particularly important in conflict situations, without perspective it can be a huge challenge to understand why someone is seeing something differently to you.
Picture this:
We are standing facing each other, a bottle is on the table between us.
We will both agree we are looking at a bottle but what you can see and what I can see is very different.
You can see the front of the bottle but if I turn it 180-degrees you will see my first view, and my view changes, the same is true if I turn it slightly again.
It is still a bottle but my view of it is a different perspective.
When looking at any ‘thing’ or ‘situation’, you need to be able to turn what you are looking at slowly and take all the information in, to get a full perspective.
Applying perspective to business
Gaining a fresh view on your business, your role and what you want to do can give you a different input and emphasis. A lack of perspective will often mean you have restrictive views which will lead to restrictive thought patterns and can create beliefs that often aren’t factual.
When I work with a client, the starting point and one of the first questions I ask is ‘what is your perspective right now on what you want to change?’
A discussion around this will quickly move into opening the doors of permission because once you gain perspective you will give yourself permission to look at things differently. These are vital steps in any change you want to make or assessing where you are right now.
If you are looking at perspective as your job or the business you set up five years ago, you might say that it is giving you money but not fulfilment, might you be looking at things from only one perspective? If so you are missing positives your job gives you, flexibility, proximity to home and positive working relationships for example. So many of us are trapped in one perspective.
How you see perspective and how you react to experiences has a direct relation to the output.
Think about the outcome you want before you react and look at different perspectives in order to recognise the true experience you are having. Thinking In this way can be extremely impactful.
For example, you may receive an email from a colleague or client that you view as confrontational or challenging and your instinct is to reply immediately – don’t!
Type your response but don’t send it. Walk away and later, re-read it. Ask yourself if is this a reply you would want to receive? And ask yourself what is going to happen when you send your ‘knee-jerk’ response. Consider perspective – emails don’t have the benefit of body language or tone.
Always remember that we can only control our reactions to a situation not the situation itself and that you are not responsible for another person’s reaction, we don’t know what is in other people’s invisible back-packs, what issues, worries and stresses they are carrying with them.
Be honest with yourself as well because problems aren’t always everyone else’s creation. Ask yourself what have you done as part of this experience and process?
Perspective creates a real understanding of where you are right now. Are you where you thought you were? The starting point – Base Camp is where I work with clients to reflect on where you’ve come form, review your current situation and gather resources ready for the new way ahead.
If you’d like to discuss perspective further please do get in touch markt@thefreedomtrails.co.uk
