If I was asked for the top 5 critical factors for success – one of them would definitely be the ability to have and hear “Perspective”. As with most things in life this is much easier said than done.
What does it mean to hear Perspective, well that means you won’t always hear “Yes I agree”, you will start to hear things like “What if we did it this way”, “No I don’t agree”. And that is tough to hear especially if we become attached to what we hear and take it as a reflection on our ability.
Often when someone disagrees with us we will think to ourselves that we missed something, we are not intelligent enough, there is something wrong with our thinking, we think too slowly, we don’t see the full picture, they must think I am stupid. These are examples of us attaching our own self-worth to the discussions and outcomes. Once we do this we are unable to really hear the perspectives that are being given.
A business, and in fact a sustainable successful business, is built through a community of stakeholders – from the employees, the customers to the shareholders – and the perspectives they bring.
Practically this means that there is no one way, no easy path that all stakeholders will agree on. One thing you can be assured of is whatever decision you will always have someone that agrees or disagrees with the decision.
Building a team around you that you allow to offer their perspectives, and that you truly hear it – will ensure that the decisions you make will have already dealt with some of the potential risks and opportunities upfront.
What this means is that the decisions that are made through this process will be more sound, more defendable. You will find that you will be less surprised by the responses you receive to the decisions (as you would of probably heard this perspective already) and there will be opportunities for you to even preempt the concerns by addressing them upfront to allow a smoother result.
Happy perspective gathering 🙂