Cut through the noise
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4/2/2018 PerspectiveComedian George Carlin has a bit he used to do about driving in which he describes people who drive slower than him as idiots and those who speed past as maniacs. Perspective is a funny thing. I was reminded of that when listening to funny stories being shared by a team during an exercise recently. Their experiences prompted me to share a story of my own:
How have you created situations you attributed to others’ behaviors? What story can you share with us to highlight perspective? Kimberly both teaches and employs the practice of pausing to consider alternative views of a situation – and now always checks her parking brake twice.
12 Comments
Annemarie
5/3/2018 07:44:38 pm
One of my favorite stories on perspective is related to the Hoover Dam. When you look at the Hoover Dam from the river side it is massive, impressive and a wonder. When you look at the dam from the lake side, all you see if a few little columns and everything else is hidden below the water. It's not that impressive. The analogy was shared to help us uncover "what are we keeping secret" that we know if there but a clients/customers/partners don't know about it, so they may be viewing the Lakeside and we're viewing the dam side.
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Kimberly Devlin
5/6/2018 11:38:36 am
Yes, Annemarie! I agree with your closing point on communication problems really being perspective issues -- and I find an effective technique for managing this is working to see the situation as the other person does. It is so much easier to redirect a conversation, clarify a miscommunication, or find workable solutions and so on that way.
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This immediately reminded my of a story Steven Covey used to tell about a man sitting in a subway car. It's one that I have repeated to my students when appropriate. To paraphrase loosely, on the subway, there were two kids running back and forth on the, making noise and disturbing the other riders. Steven noticed a man which appeared to be their father and he was letting the kids go wild. As he watched the man do nothing to stop his children, he began to get upset. After some time he finally could not take it anymore and approached the father about the children's behavior. The man said, "I'm sorry, it's just that we just came from the hospital, where they lost their mother, and I guess they don't know how to handle it.". Obviously, Steven's perspective of the man changed in that instant, as did mine when I first heard the story. It is easy to judge, and all of us are guilty of this, but it's healthy to pause in moments when people upset us and ask, could something else be going on that I'm not aware of? Maybe they are a good person, dealing with an difficult circumstance.
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Kimberly Devlin
5/6/2018 11:32:21 am
Tom -
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Stephanie Martinez
6/18/2018 11:40:24 am
Last week we went out to dinner. Our waiter seemed (to me) to be running around "like a chicken with his head cut off". As I started to get annoyed, my boyfriend reminded me, "You don't know whats going on in his world. Maybe he is a little scattered and its taking longer to order, but we're not in any rush, so let's just enjoy our meal." I immediately settled down because he was right. I didn't know what was going on in our waiter's life, and he was still friendly and helpful, and there was no real problem with the service. Sometimes our expectations of what "should" be happening can cloud our perspective of what is actually happening.
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Kimberly Devlin
6/19/2018 05:25:49 pm
Great example Stephanie!
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Yvette Harris
6/18/2018 05:48:29 pm
Perception? WHEW! Am I sick of hearing this word here at state government! Everything that we do, say, everyplace we go if we are in a state vehicle - EVERYTHING here begins and ends with 'PERCEPTION.' The culture here has almost raised most of us to be extra cautious and has even trained us for the media to always say the right thing (which most time is "NO COMMENT!") It used to drive me crazy that we were constantly under the spotlight and all the good that we use our powers for was going unnoticed on the fact that someone might have-sorta-kinda-maybe had said or done the wrong thing; as I've moved up the ladder, I now get the importance of the word, especially with the newspaper office right across the street from our headquarters location! :-) This word is not for the faint of heart and those of us that understand what the wrong perception for a government employee can do to the masses! It took me a while to get it, but now we too are cautious about decisions made or places we are seen in that state vehicle! It helps me and my staff to understand that since we are committed to doing public service work, that special word simply goes along with the territory. And? Since my staff and I are people of integrity -- we have nothing to fear!
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Kimberly Devlin
6/18/2018 06:04:26 pm
Thank you Yvette for getting me to reread my post, looking for "perception"! You and I are addressing similar, but different words here: perception (your word) and perspective (mine).
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Alison D.
7/15/2018 09:03:16 pm
It's not usually all that fun when you have to admit you were wrong in a situation like this. My story about this came to mind right away. I work in a law office and since I train the paralegals and am familiar with how to do a number of the tasks, I have been taking on a few extra responsibilities while we are short staffed. I filed a Motion with the Court the other day, and two days later, I was still waiting to get a signature on the Order for that Motion. This is unusual, so I called the Court to inquire about why it had not been signed. It was very time sensitive, so it was causing some worry in the office. It turns out I had sent two copies of the Motion, instead of one of the Motion and one of the Order that needed to be signed. Many times we just have to take a step back and look at ourselves as a part of the big picture too. We all make mistakes.
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Kimberly Devlin
7/17/2018 09:54:33 am
Just last night, I met with one of my oldest friends -- we started our careers together 25 years ago. Your comment reminds me of something he said relative to leadership and teams. His words centered on being able to admit mistakes and accept blame. "When you can do that," he said "it makes everyone on the team so much more relaxed."
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9/21/2018 04:57:15 pm
A former national park ranger, I took great pride in my work leading tours of historic houses and battlefields, national cemeteries and monuments. History to me was moving and relevant, requiring indepth analysis and deep implications for our future. I did not view the work of my naturalist colleagues in the same way. 'Tree huggers' were not on the top of the list of people that I admired. Until my supervisory ranger decided to shake things up one day and moved the historians to the natural sites and vice versa. Did things look quite different from the other side. In that experience I learned just how moving and relevant the natural, inhuman world proved to be, and that it required just as much indepth analysis, research and deep implications for the future as the lense through which I viewed historical events. Needless to say, the level of respect that I gained for my naturalist colleagues increased dramatically through that experience.
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Kimberly Devlin
9/24/2018 09:43:59 pm
Great story Gerrard! Thank you for sharing it.
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