The view from my friend and host’s loft in Brooklyn a few hours ago, just after sunrise on a cold and crisp 4c / 39f degree morning.
The inspiring view has me musing today on the power of changing and challenging your perspective.
I just spent a week in Cayman and yesterday morning the temperature was 30c / 88f and this was the view out to my host’s garden.
In addition to the view out to the bright sun and lush tropical garden, an element that is not captured in the contrast between Cayman and Brooklyn is auditory.
That house and garden in Cayman are totally tranquil. The loft in Brooklyn is quite literally under the Manhattan Bridge, and subway trains rattle across every few minutes at high volume. Takes some getting used to and certainly a change in perspective.
One morning apart, totally different views, climates, sound levels. Rarely ever have I felt such a radical and sudden shift in perspective.
I have a clear day today and had initially planned to go into Manhattan and go around central park, yet as I write this, my sense is to stay in the loft and this surrounding area and adjust to this environment and take it in. The view is so breathtaking that I feel to simply sit in the window and read and look out of the window at the changing light until the day fades and the lights of Manhattan at night shift the perspective once more.
So to changing and challenging your perspective.
Cayman has been home to me for most of my adult life and is home to me. However, I live in London now, so when I go back to Cayman and talk to so many people over the course of a week, some themes occur to me.
First, the value of changing perspective. There are so many opportunities and challenges facing Cayman, whether it be cruise berthing, waste management, infrastructure development, offshore finance, international relations and many more. Each of these came up in discussion at least once or twice over the course of my many meetings last week.
In those conversations, I could sense my own perspective being changed by the fact that my home base is now in London. Yes, I’ve always travelled a lot from Cayman, but now I feel that being based thousands of miles away brings value from that changed perspective, particularly around the international relations issues. For example, it feels far easier to understand the perspective of the UK government towards Cayman from being here and meeting so many people in different spaces in London and beyond.
So, in your own leadership, do consider how you can change your own perspective. Sometimes it is as simple as taking a trip and switching off the phone. BEing in nature is particularly good, and if you can bring your team with you and have different experiences alongside them that is also truly powerful. Many offsites and retreats that I have lead and otherwise been part of over the years incorporated change of perspective in that way to great effect.
Changing perspective is of great value, so what about challenging perspectives too? What value does that have?
I’ll use my change in location in recent days as an example to start with. I recognise now that at a subconscious level I was concerned that I might not sleep well under the Manhattan Bridge with the noise of the trains, so had not thought about the positive elements about the change of place. However, I actually found sleeping fine, I got used to the trains quickly and slept well. I then woke a little after sunrise and took that photo. My breath was truly taken away at the beauty of that view, hence I am still sitting here facing that view.
Once I had faced that challenge to my perspective (“too noisy” etc), I could embrace the gifts of what that new perspective brought.
Now, to leadership, business etc and challenging perspectives. I’d say we all recognise the value in challenging our own perspectives and those of our own organisation, but what do we actually do about that?
I wrote about some of these ideas in: “Avoiding group think – Ipcha Mistabra” and several other posts, suggesting such ideas as “Red team / 10th man” – always have someone or a group who have the role of taking the opposite stance to the prevailing view.
What else can you do to challenge your perspective? A few ideas:
- Appoint one or two truly (that is a KEY word) independent directors to your board.
- For example, a major industry association that was a topic of conversation last week has a large board where every member is resident in the same country and is currently a leader in a business working in that industry. What if they appointed two or three directors who are well versed in the country and industry sector but not so close to the coalface?
- Duelling Dragons
- A business leader and friend told me last week they use this. When a new project / initiative / development is being considered by the business, experience has shown this leader that if they only consider one concept at a time, then those researching and evaluating it become more and more attached to it the further down the path they go. They, therefore, create two teams and each look at different options, then they present their ideas, the “duelling dragons” if you will. The outcome is often, in fact, to choose a third option that brings elements of both of the two first evaluated.
- Independent facilitation/coaching
- Yes, this is a part of my work with organisations so I may have my own bias, freely acknowledged!
- The value to this (I feel!) is in having someone skilled in drawing out the issues from a group and then coaching them towards their own answers.
- You’ll note that I say facilitation/coaching and not simply facilitation. Coaching involves additional skills to the key facilitation skills needed to open up the group and bring their ideas out. Coaching works well with Facilitation skills as is both outcome-oriented and comes from a place of believing the answers are already there within the clients, they simply need to be teased out by the coach.
To summarise, challenging perspectives takes conscious action and use of methods, skills and tools, such as the ideas above.
Most powerful, I feel, is combining both, to both change and challenge perspectives.
As I finish this, I note that work towards 2019 and some transformative leadership programmes are building momentum, starting this with a retreat for about ten master facilitators, coaches, programme designers and others outside that space for a few days in mid-November at a country house in the English countryside. Change of place, change of perspective, even a few of the group as “left field” participants. We will join together to challenge and meld our ideas.
How might you change and challenge your perspective?