The Power of Perspective: A New Way Of Seeing For Nonprofit Leaders
Happy Friday!
The Cambridge Dictionary defines clockwise as, “the direction in which the hands of a clock move.”
Merriam Websters’ definition is nearly identical, except they add the critical caveat: “…when viewed from the front.”
You can test the importance of that caveat yourself by looking at this arrow from the other side of your screen. 😉
It will magically change from clockwise to counterclockwise.
The power of perspective!
So much organizational friction is generated by the human tendency to categorize differences in perspective as conflict or judgement. How natural it would be to imagine someone is incompetent who, standing right in front of you, insisted the arrow above was spinning counterclockwise.
When pointed externally towards your relationships, shifting your perspective can lead to empathy. Not necessarily agreement, but empathy at least.
When pointed internally towards your problems, shifting your perspective can lead to creative solutions. Think about a current problem you’re facing. Explore it from a few of these different perspectives to see if you can discover something unexpected:
Time: What if you had to solve the problem in the next five seconds? What if your primary goal was to please your five-years-from-now self?
Negative Outcome: If you had to make the problem 10x worse with only one decision, what decision would you make? (This can point you toward high leverage points for positive change.)
Adjacent Problems: If you could only solve your problem indirectly, by solving an adjacent or deeper problem, what would you go after?
What other perspective shifts can you imagine that might help you find new ways of solving your problem?
And with that, our one minute is up.
Go change the world!
Drew
PS: Speaking of perspectives: I'm hoping to talk with nonprofit leaders to better understand their perspective. I'm still honing my core services, and talking with real-world people helps! My focus is organizational transformations and turnarounds, so I’d love to talk with people who've led teams through big, urgent changes. If you or someone you know is willing to chat for a half hour, email me!
