I don't know about you, but it feels like the world is becoming ever more polarised - with opinions that differ causing a huge anount of stress, trolling, abuse and protesting.
I don't know if you watched the documentary called "The Social Dilemma"on netflix? I was fascinated by the consequences of the algorythms being used to drive sales and how that has actually led to a narrowing of viewpoints as social media systems only show you things they think you will click on, so those who search or watch or interact with something expressing a specific point of view (POV) will see more and more of that POV and none of the opposite.
This is leading people to believe more and more of what they see as undisputable facts and creating wider gaps between people, not to mentioned an increasing inability to be able to respect others differing POVs.
Whilst this does create a great topic for debate, it is also incredibly worrying.
In a world where we know more and more about just how unique each and everyone one of us is, from our DNA, to the chemistry produced by our thoughts, to the efficacy of our immune system. Our values, personality profiles, senses of humour, desires, attractions, pet hates and phobias all combine to create singular individuals. We are all so very very different - something that can be seen as a positive or a negative depending on where you're coming from, as this wonderfully simple yet impactful image shows.....
How do we embrace being unique ourselves and at the same time accept that our reality, our "right" doesn't correlate to everyone's right and, that that is ok.
How do we allow our persecptive to be factored back into our worlds, in a way that is accepting, compassionate and welcoming?
In the world of work - perspective is very important - and how we share ours and listen to others is both a skill we need to have and one we need to advovate for more within our companies. I hear of far too many cultures where the offical line talks about being open to different ideas, how innovation is borne of sharing and taking on board others perspectives, but the reality is comply or die. Where raising your hand to share your view is met with annoyance, distaste and sometime exclusion from future meetings. Historically these diverse POVs would have been explored under the term of diversity, but now that only seems to relate to a narrower definition. Diversity in ALL areas is what creates an innvoative, collaborative and empowered workplace.
"The right perpsective, makes the impossible possible"
Taking someone else’s perspective requires that we ignore what we know, feel or perceive to determine what someone else knows, feels or perceives. Perspective taking allows us to communicate with others who know more or less than we know, who feel differently from how we feel, or who see or hear things that we can’t see or hear.
Unfortunately, our own knowledge and feelings often limit our ability to take another’s perspective. Our own knowledge can also limit our ability to recognise our own prior ignorance. We often think we “knew it all along” when, in fact, we just learned it!
The good news, however, is that researchers found a simple, concrete way we can all confidently and correctly improve the accuracy of our insights into others’ lives. When people are given a chance to talk to the other person about their opinions before making predictions about them - they called this “perspective getting” (as opposed to perspective taking, which is based on our metnal ability to empathise based on experience or intelligence) - they are much more accurate in predicting how others might feel than those instructed to take another’s perspective or given no instructions.
In a test, researchers asked subjects to try putting themselves in another’s shoes, on the one hand, and on the other, to talk directly with test partners about their positions on a given topic. This experiment confirmed that getting another person’s perspective directly, through conversation, increased the accuracy of subjects’ predictions, while simply “taking” another’s perspective did not. This was true for partners, friends, and strangers alike.
“Understanding the mind of another person,” as the researchers put it, is only possible when we actually probe them about what they think, rather than assuming we already know.
Perspective Getting
Recognising the limits of your sixth sense suggests a different approach to understanding the minds of others: trying harder to get another person’s perspective instead of trying to take it.
Let's bring this to life with a real-world example that was shared by Be Mindwise
In 1993, the U.S. government signed the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy into law, banning gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military. In 2010, the Obama administration was considering the consequences of repealing the law. They wanted to understand the practical consequences on the repeal. This is a textbook mind-reading problem, with the ability to perspective get or take to assist in solving it.
Perspective Taking | Perspective Getting |
1,167 retired military officers used their perspective-taking ability to imagine the consequences for current soldiers of repealing the law. In an open letter they expressed their strong opposition. “Our past experience as military leaders,” they wrote, “leads us to be greatly concerned about the impact of repeal on morale, discipline, unit cohesion, and overall military readiness. We believe that imposing this burden on our men and women in uniform would eventually break the All-Volunteer Force.” They argued that this opposition must be taken very seriously. | The Pentagon asked 115,052 soldiers and 44,266 of their spouses directly for their views in one of the largest studies in military history. The soldiers themselves expressed relatively few concerns. In fact, 70% believed that the repeal would have no effect or a positive effect on the military. From these responses, Defense Secretary Robert Gates concluded that the repeal “would not be the wrenching dramatic change that many have feared and predicted.” Gates pushed for its repeal. |
Who was right? In 2012, one year after the repeal the military released a study of its consequences. The title of the press release says it best: “First Study of Openly Gay Military Service Finds ‘Non-Event’ at One-Year Mark.” Getting the soldiers’ perspective by asking them for it enabled understanding.
"When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change."
We primarily communicate through language. As Daniel Gilbert writes in Stumbling on Happiness, “If you were to write down every thing you know and then go back through the list and make a check mark next to the things you know only because someone told you, you’d develop a repetitive-motion disorder because nearly everything you know is secondhand”.
This is why William Ickes, an expert on empathic accuracy, finds that “the best predictor [so far] of empathic accuracy appears to be verbal intelligence”, because, knowing others’ minds requires asking and listening, not just guessing.
The gains that come from getting perspective directly instead of guessing about someone’s perspective can be big. Whilst it is hugely beneficial to have a sixth sense, it is also imperative that we do not let it become rampantly overconfident. If we want to understand what’s on the mind of another, the best our mortal senses can do is to rely on our ears more than our inferences.
A little trick I use with myself and some of my colleagues - is to imagine myself standing at a window, and my current perspective is what I can see. If I take a step to the left or the right, what I see may well change - it could mean seeing the sun, a road, a house that was not visible before. Conversely it could mean losing sight of something. To me this is a really good visual way to reminding myself that just out of sight could be a whole lot more insight that could change my perspective and POV, if i just take that step
What amazes me is that you can have 10 different photographers in the same room, and you see 10 different rooms. You realise how much of it is the person's perspective rather than the situation itself" - Rick Smolan
My challenge to you, off the back of this blog, is that next time you recognise that you have jumped to a conclusion, or make as assumption about someone's intention, motivation or POV, you challenge yourself to ask and listen - you never know you may just learn something...
Until next time...
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