The Power of Perspectives

I believe that there is tremendous power in perspectives!  Over the last few years, I have found it highly useful to look at things from different perspectives.  Whether it is a situation, a problem, or an opportunity, it is amazing when you see, hear, think and feel it from a different perspective other than your own.

The first step I take is to decide on at least one useful perspective.  Once I have chosen the best one, I first do a little research about it. Then, I sit down to develop a set of questions based on that perspective.  Sometimes it may be necessary to do this from several different perspectives.  For example, there can be a situation that needs to be looked at from your customers’, employees’ and boss’s perspective.  There are other situations when you need to look at things from an outside perspective such as a board member, consultant, auditor, etc.

I like to use two approaches when I do this, and I developed two metaphors to help me keep them in mind:

• Walking in someone else’s shoes
• Wearing someone else’s hat

The first approach metaphor applies best to situations that require you to view things with a “seek to understand” mindset.  Using this approach, you put yourself in the other person’s position (you wear their shoes so to speak) and try to think about the way they would give what you are aware of and what you know.

The second approach metaphor applies to situations that require you to view things from a different “role” perspective.  Using this position, you figure out how they would think about the situation you are considering.  To do this, you “put their hat on” so you may think as they do. Let me illustrate the second approach with a recent example.

A couple of years ago, I wanted to make some changes and improvements to our business.  My first step was to sit down and think of several good perspectives to use.  I chose a combination of three:  A Market Analyst, a Private Equity person and a Venture Capitalist.  Next, I did some homework to learn how these folks think and work.  My goal was to figure out what was most important to them when evaluating investment opportunities.  I then developed a set of questions based on what I thought they would ask of us, if they were to come in to look at Remote DBA Experts.  That exercise led me to tremendous insight.  I thought of things that I may have never thought about had I not done the exercise.  The changes I made significantly improved our business and coincidentally attracted unsolicited requests from such folks (not so coincidental if you believe in the “Law of Attractors”).

Beyond my two approaches there are many other approaches (perspectives/positions/roles) one can use.  In fact, several great creativity approaches use a “perspective” approach such as Dr. de Bono’s “Six Thinking Hats” perspectives:

Also, a perspective approach is used in Roger von Oech’s four Roles of the creative process: The Explorer, The Artist, The Judge, and The Warrior based on his book A Kick in the Seat of the Pants.

And by the way, both books are great reads!!! Perspectives can be very powerful for handling situations of all kinds.  Insert this mindset into your daily “thinking routines” and see how it will give you great advantage in whatever you do.

Try it!

The BEST is Yet to Come!

Epi Torres, CEO