Standing on the Balcony of One's Life
There’s power in perspective – not simply a different point of view but a higher, elevated perspective. The view that comes from stepping up and back, getting a broader sense of things. The different view from the orchestra seats in the theatre compared to that from the balcony. Relationships come into relief, foreground and background shift, possibilities emerge and disappear.
On a regular basis, we can make the choice to shift perspective and benefit from what it reveals. From different perspectives can come new facts, new perceptions, new interpretations, new possibilities and opportunities. New directions, paths and destinations. New, perhaps better, futures calling us forth.
How does this happen? Perhaps the most obvious way is to get up and move, literally or figuratively. Take a new position and notice what your world looks like, how it is similar and different. How has your horizon of possibilities expanded?
Another way is to have conversations with others, even better when their points of view are different from ours. What do they see that I don’t see? Where am I blind? Averting my gaze? How are they putting things together? What sense are they making of new configurations? And with all of that happening, how have I now shifted how I look at my world?
A similar kind of process happens when I coach. My client wants to be better, execute better and more effectively, engage with others more fully and authentically. Said another way, they want to accelerate and realize more of their potential, their opportunity to share their gifts with the world. As my colleague and mentor Bob Dunham says, life happens in our conversations. Life is shaped by our conversations, the one we don’t have, do have and the quality of those that occur. Those conversations can produce new awareness, a doorway to different, expanded futures. Reflection can enable insights, new choices connected to new opportunities when acted on.
A quick story illustrates the point. Deborah is a rock star in sales. Formerly a client executive, then promoted to Director and now to Vice President, she supported client executives to sell and deliver excellent customer experience, and prospective and current customers to better articulate their cares and needs which could then get fulfilled. She often was asked to go on a client call and be the closer. She listened well, was empathetic and patient, and consistently delivered satisfaction. Not so much with her peers, though, where she was impatient and her judgmental demeanor sometimes broke rapport and produced interpretations of not a team player.
From our coaching conversations, Deborah could recognize the cost she was incurring by her reactive, judgmental approach to her colleagues. impatience is seldom, if ever, a way to make friends and influence teammates. She had to do the introspective work to understand why she chose to behave differently and to identify the story she told herself that kept such nonproductive behavior in place. (It had to do with a faulty assumption that colleagues should be as knowledgeable, smart and intuitive as she was, but they weren’t.) Once she saw what was in play, she could begin to shift her perspective and the assumptions, attitude and actions that went with it. Choosing to tap into her curiosity, ambition for collective success/satisfaction and a desire to learn fueled her motivation, practice and growth. She now is on a steep learning curve to emerge from the rut of an old habit.
Perspective taking and shifting is a skill begun in childhood and continued into our adult lives. For many reasons, we must stay the course and continue to expand and refine those skills. The quality of our social interactions depends on that ability. Empathy and compassion are some of its expressions.
A book that makes this vertical development learning process explicit and easier is Upgrade by Richard Boston and Karen Ellis. The authors point to four cognitive competencies needed to navigate our complex world well; perspective shifting is one of them. They suggest practices for accelerating one’s learning and progression through stages. It is a worthy read, in my humble opinion.
Where would a fresh perspective open up new worlds of possibility for you? What would you need to let go of in order to stand in a different place? What role does curiosity play? How might exercising such choices reflect a larger bias towards flexibility and adaptation?
One of my favorite quotes is from the 19th century French novelist Marcel Proust: “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new lands but seeing with new eyes.” I encourage your bold choice to see with new eyes, setting out on your new, grand adventure.
#selfleadership #designyourlife #perspectiveshifting