Cultivating a Fresh Perspective

I often contemplate and highlight the strengths we bring to our clients with the wealth of experience and tenure that a seasoned team has in its toolkit.  But! It's not all about having seen it all and done it all before. Another critical component of a strong team is having fresh perspective. We can cultivate fresh perspective in a variety of ways by bringing in new talent, re-aligning existing talent, and by expanding the perspectives of those who have lots of experience and tenure in a particular area. Over the course of our careers, we’ve probably all utilized these methods (at one time or another) to bring together a variety of perspectives and challenge ourselves to do things differently. The Great Resignation/Great Upgrade has only served to accelerate movement and re-alignment of teams. Hint: If you're a leader that hasn't experienced this yet, you may be missing out on some growth opportunities.

One of my favorite quotes that captures this perfectly is from Henry David Thoreau who said “It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” No matter how long you’ve been in your current job or team, you can always expand or change your perspective on things. There are many ways to accomplish this, but here are a few methods that I use to keep my own perspective fresh:

• Appreciative inquiry – This exercise focuses on a positive, strengths-based approach to identify and bring out the best in a person, situation, or organization. It works in any setting (personal or professional). There are many different ways to tackle this exercise, and the questions may be slightly different based on what types of perspectives you’re exploring. You can check out more about appreciative inquiry and find sample questions here.
• “Kill The Company” – This is based on the book by Lisa Bodell that is focused on overcoming status quo to drive innovation. The exercise involves taking an external point of view -- even putting yourself in the mindset of our competitors -- to more clearly see weaknesses and differentiators in how we do things. The approach is a bit more challenging because it can be hard to accept some of the answers, and it’s a bit more focused on the big picture problems and risks at hand. You can explore some of these types of questions  here.
• Ask someone new – Take advantage of the ideas and opinions of new team members that have recently joined your team and may be able to see things that others don’t see. Sometimes the person that seems to know the least about a problem can be the one to solve it as illustrated in the Stuck Truck story.
• Step away – Beyond the more explicit methods, sometimes you can get a fresh perspective just by stepping away for some fresh air and removing yourself from distractions--- even turning off your phone (gasp!). There’s a great TED talk on building Unwavering Focus by Dandapani that you can find here.

Seeking out fresh perspectives through these or other methods will stretch your thinking, but this can also be very insightful in understanding perceptions and differences within a community of interest. Sometimes simply asking the question opens conversations that may not have happened without asking. At the very least, you'll probably learn something or see something you didn't recognize before.