It’s often hard to keep the right perspective. We often grumble and complain about problems at work, or in our life, while ignoring or misinterpreting the good things that happen around us.
Like the story one of my clients, whom we will call Stan, shared with me this week. He is part of the management team of his company. He has a tendency to focus on the negative, on how big problems are. We have been working on changing perspectives, looking for what is positive in difficult situations, and speaking his mind more often.
In our conversation, he complained that his boss tried to embarrass him in font of the rest of the team. When I asked what happened this is the story he told me:
We have been discussing changes in some company policies. As you encouraged me to do, I went and talked to my boss in private about one of the changes I could not agree with. He listened to me, but did not change his mind.
Later in the week, when he was presenting his decision to the rest of the group, he said the policy was going to go forward, even when some of us did not agree, and looking directly at me said, right Stan? Why did he had to embarrass me that way
I asked Stan if he could look at the incident from a different perspective. He admitted he could not see it any other way. I then asked: Can you think that maybe he was openly giving you permission to disagree with him now and in the future and to explain your thinking?
Stan looked back at me surprised. "Wow! -- he exclaimed -- that changes everything! If I look at it from that perspective, I don’t feel embarrassed. I feel empowered!"
Changing your perspective can be refreshing.
Changing perspective might:
- Help you relate better with a person you have considered “difficult” before
- Reduce your stress
- Open up new possibilities by seeing, instead of a roadblock, the gift of and opportunity to take a new path
I’m a photography aficionado. When I compose a photograph, my perspective is based on the distance and angle to the subject as well as the distance and angle of the subject to the other compositional elements in the scene. When I’m framing a picture, I move around with my camera until I find a perspective that provides what I’m looking for. Many times changing perspectives just a little bit totally changes the scene.
As Henry David Thoreau” long ago said: “The question is not what you look at, but what you see.” If you change your focus from being defensive to listening and looking for the good in what others do or say, you will enjoy your work and your life much more. In the process, you can possibly discover a totally different picture, by shifting your perspective. It's your decision.
Remember. . .
You can get caught up in high-stress situations with many demands placed on you. You can fall into the trap of thinking you’ve hit a roadblock, when in reality you just need to change your perspective.
After all, you hold the key of power over the way you see and take life. You can talk to yourself in a different way.
I can help you or the leaders that report to you develop the power to change perspectives. This will make you more effective and successful. To find out more, simply click here.
Photo by: Logos Noesis