Expanding One’s Perspective

Post Date: May 20th, 2015

Do you ever get caught up in what’s right in front of you and what you need to get done? Do you sometimes have a meeting with peers, or perhaps your boss, and tell them what you’re working on and sometime even what they need to do to help you? How do they respond? Excited to jump in and help you? Give you a blank look and share what they are working on and what you need to do to help them? Sometimes we are excited about our project and don’t understand why others aren’t getting on board.

I imagine most of us have found ourselves in one of these situations. If any of the above sound familiar, you are not alone. Here’s an idea: before your next meeting, think about the situation from the other person’s perspective – put yourself in their shoes: How would they feel? What would they think about what you are proposing? How might the other person benefit from what you’d like to achieve?

If you know the other person pretty well, you can probably make a pretty good guess. If you don’t know them well (perhaps you or they are new to the organization) what do you know about them? How have you seen them react in similar scenarios? What are their concerns? What are their goals? How does what you are proposing fit into their goals or potentially address their concerns?

By looking at the situation from the other person’s perspective, it will give you insight into how best present your idea or request for optimal results. It may even have you rethink your idea or request, and the two of you may even come up with something even more innovative!

Would enjoy hearing what ideas this sparks for you. Where could you implement this concept?

To your success,

Gwyneth Anne Freedman