Assess your perspective & find your blind spots (all without visiting the eye doctor)
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under Business & organizational development, Human resources, Training & development
We all have 20/20 vision …. in some areas, just as we all have blind spots … in other areas. Do you know yours?
The challenge is how to identify where we shine and where we’re blind.
By the time you’ve begun reading this you’ve already been faced with an onslaught of sensory input. Everything from ads, car horns, billboards, music, emails, tweets, newspaper stories, people talking, phones ringing etc. All vying for the privilege your attention.
What gets caught by your attention and brought onto your radar is largely a product of your perspective or what you consider to be and not to be important.
Because we can’t pay attention to everything we filter things out and bring others upfront onto our radar. This internal filtering system affects:
– everything you say, do and react to,
– what you value and see as important
– what you miss, don’t see and don’t acknowledge
Yet your internal filter is largely unconscious.
Our perspective is so much a part of us that it seems invisible, like a pair of glasses or lenses that we’ve worn for so long they all but disappear from our awareness. Their influence however does not diminish. We all wear these lenses and these lenses affect what comes onto our radar easily, naturally and comfortably as well as what never makes it onto our radar.
The problem with perspective is that we all assume our own is normal, natural and right. When someone doesn’t ‘get’ us and our perspective, we get frustrated pretty fast. We often simply end up doing more of whatever it is that isn’t working, in the vain hope that something will eventually get through to the dim wit we’re trying to communicate with.
And speaking of dim, we rarely think to shine the light on our own dim or unlit areas of our perspective.
Enter Life Lenses, a self-assessment tool.
Life Lenses is about figuring out:
– what on earth your client was talking about at that last meeting
– why your boss is placing such importance on something you find unfathomable
– how to move forward on a team project with your colleague when you have a different view
– getting a handle on your competitors and even
– understanding what motivates your spouse and kids
Imagine the possibilities that open up with that kind of expanded perspective.
Imagine the worlds that open up when you can shift perspectives.
Life Lenses are about you walking a mile in my shoes AND me walking mile in yours. Life Lenses are about you seeing the world from my perspective and my seeing the world from yours.
The language of Life Lenses helps everyone to identify blind spots. For example when we need to be more ‘mountain top’, which is one of the Life Lenses whose strength is seeing patterns, trends and big ideas. Alternately applying a ‘carrot top’ lens (the opposite lens to the mountain top) would help an individual, team or organization to focus on critical details and systems.
Life Lenses help to prevent conflict by depersonalizing challenging situations. Instead of saying “she’s driving me nuts with her incessant attention to details that aren’t important” (which can be a weakness of a carrot top lens), you can switch to a mountain top view temporarily.
The lenses are extra accessories, glasses that can be put on when needed, to view the world from a different perspective, in order to get along better with a colleague, be more creative, solve a conflict, be more effective and more.
Far from creating yet another prescriptive, limiting box Life Lenses is about you assessing where you shine and where you need polish. After all you’re an expert in your own life, Life Lenses simply gives you the language and tools to amp up your perspective and gain a whole new view.
To find out more about the Life Lenses:
- listen to this 10 minute Dyana Valentine interview with Life Lenses author Lee-Anne Ragan
- attend the upcoming Life Lenses workshop July 9th in Ojai California
- download the one pager description
Tags: assessment, Diversity & culture, dyana valentine, life lenses, perspective
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