What is the real value in enhancing your perspective on talent, engagement and retention?
Our perspective is the lens through which we view the world and makes sense of it.
As an educational leader in a world rich with diversity and complexity, the ability to broaden and enhance our perspectives is potentially the most valuable capability to possess. It offers a myriad benefits that enrich our lives, relationships, connection and understanding of the world around us. Developing it can unlock the potential of whole organisations, connect with stakeholders you never thought possible, and provide a gateway of innovation, talent potential, and system maturity.
At its core, enhancing perspective is about embracing openness, curiosity, and a willingness to explore different viewpoints by:
Understanding our own lens
Consciously exploring the lens of others
Understanding our own lens requires us to move outside of our comfort zone, examine our own experiences and test the existing boundaries with which we and other’s view the world. It is the greatest result of many of our team journeys. Individuals in the team waking up to the understanding that others see the world from a different perspective and therefore bring different strengths to the table. This shows up in better strategy, risk assessment, talent management and aligning the culture of your team and organisation.
It is an extremely valuable skill and is becoming more so as societies and cultures expand globally and become more diverse. Enhancing your perspective is not about putting your own values, beliefs and views to one-side, but more about widening your view to incorporate the views of others more readily and deepen your consideration, connection and questioning of your own experience of the world.
Without it, we risk excluding people and their contributions to the setting’s journey. We see the symptoms of this in the disengagement and attrition of staff and high absence rate of learners.
The benefits of consciously developing your perspective taking is ten-fold. Not only does it enable you to better appreciate diverse culture, traditions and ways of life; it fosters empathy and connection with others who may differ from ourselves on a deeper level. We begin to see that despite external differences internal human commonalities can be found and appreciated, building bridges of trust between individuals and communities, enriching relationships and reaping the rewards of valued and committed stakeholders.
It requires a motivation to continue learning, the knowledge and skills to do so and crucially, embodying the change in our own lens and how we show up as a result. Whilst many talk of taking other’s perspectives, it is very hard to walk the walk without a common framework and a lens that is mature enough to apply it.
In our Human Leadership Course, the third module explores different tools for perspective taking depending on an individual’s specific goal. We work as guides with our learners to identify opportunities within their work and personal lives to broaden their perspectives around key issues suggesting a range of tools to support the process:
Ladder of Inference (Argyris, 1970; Senge, 1990)
Johari Window (Luft & Ingham, 1955)
Cultural Intelligence (Earley & Ang, 2003)
Empathy Mapping (Gray, 2010)
Brookfields Lenses (Brookfield, 1990)
Spiral Dynamics (Beck & Cowan, 2005)
Each of the above tools works slightly differently depending on what stage of the journey you are already on and therefore what you are seeking to gain from the exercise. Working with our coaches allows them to provide you with an experience of perspective taking and the guidance to work through the steps to making this consistent.
The exercise itself and what comes from them can be immensely illuminating through experiencing the power when questioning with open curiosity and valuing the adoption of different views and beliefs and the results that emerge.
The feedback we get from leaders is that they begin to expose themselves to different cultures and experiences whenever the opportunity arises, entering these environments with appreciative curiosity, speaking to individuals with openness and showing interest to broaden understanding. This feeds into expanding one’s own biases and network either socially or professionally to meet with individuals from different cultures, professions and life experiences.
An interesting, albeit public example of this emerging in practice that springs to mind is The Guardian’s “Dining across the divide” feature which seeks to pair individuals with opposing viewpoints about key cultural and societal issues to discuss their perspectives over a meal. This is perhaps not realistic in everyday life however the core concept and principle of the activity is the same. The individuals involved are exposed to differing perspectives, what they choose to take from this in terms of broadening their own perspectives comes down to their openness and curiosity within the conversation itself and the rest is up to them within their own reflections.
Reflecting on this within leadership raises the question of how we are exposing our students to different perspectives, creating those ‘heat experiences’ whereby individuals are prompted to consider their own perspectives in relation to others in a safe and curious environment. Debate is often about winning the argument, but strategy is about creating alignment behind the best course of action. Schools and the education system itself can all too often fall into the trap of covering these key issues at a surface level to tick the box for the curriculum content but fail to truly prompt students to dive deeper into their view of the world and explore these differing viewpoints in a real and meaningful way. This blog by no means contains the answer for how to do this but our leadership model, based on human development always seeks to reflect on earlier experiences of our learners. Imagine the impact on behaviour and collaboration in schools and society if our learners had the tools and common practice in our curriculums and educational environment to unite and find solutions together.
Enhancing perspective is a continuous journey—one that enriches our lives in profound ways. By actively seeking to broaden our viewpoints, we not only gain a deeper understanding of the world but also foster compassionate empathy, critical thinking, and personal growth. Embracing diverse perspectives becomes a catalyst for positive change, so what was your perspective on this blog? Do comment and connect.
If you are interested in exploring cutting edge coaching or team opportunities further for either yourself or your team and the benefits it can offer more widely for your organisation, we would be delighted to discuss options further. Please book a discovery call or contact us at info@glasshouselab.com.
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References:
Argyris, C. (1970). The applicability of organizational sociology. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1970.
Beck, D. E. & Cowan, C. C. (2005). Spiral dynamics: Mastering values, leadership and change. John Wiley & Sons
Brookfield SD. The skillful teacher. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1990.
Earley, P. C., & Ang, S. (2003). Cultural intelligence: Individual interactions across cultures. Stanford University Press
Gray, D. (2010). Gamestorming.
Luft, J. and Ingham, H. (1955) 'The Johari window, a graphic model of interpersonal awareness
Senge, P. (1990). The Fifth Discipline : the Art and Practice of the Learning Organization. New York :Doubleday/Currency, APA