Walking the streets of Edinburgh over the weekend, I came across a number of homeless dogs. Or at least that is how I perceived them as I strolled down George Street on a chilly Saturday afternoon, and saw a variety of breeds lying under blankets with their homeless owners asking me for my spare change. Having owned three labradors some years ago, I am one of many dog lovers who has experienced the joys (and frustrations) of raising puppies and watching them become grown best friends. My labs were incredible friends, loyal, caring and each of them having their own unique personality and character. As I recalled my three four-legged friends from days gone by, I got to thinking whether a dog would agree with my view that in fact he is homeless. What would the dog think?
per⋅spec⋅tive
–noun
the state of one's ideas, the facts known to one, etc., in having a meaningful interrelationship: You have to live here a few years to see local conditions in perspective.
Do you remember the first time you truly grasped the concept of perspective? It was like the fog clearing for me. I was in business school (that late believe it or not) and my Professor was unfortunately not very good, a fact that is supported by the sad truth that I can't remember her name. While she was not very good compared to some of her more impressive peers, for one lesson she did fascinate us with the importance of using perspective as a powerful tool in our day-to-day business dealings. She taught us the importance of understanding others' perspective in order to get across our own. She took the time to ensure we grasped the notion that understanding does not mean agreeing, but by understanding we have a better shot of connecting.
Some of you may be wondering why it took me until business school to grasp this simple concept, but think about it. When are we ever taught about perspective? They don't teach it at school, in religion or in sports and extra curricular activities. If anything, we are taught belief systems that are meant to define who we are, who we hang with, how we roll...dig deeper into society and you will see my point: gangs don't teach their members to understand the perspective of rival gangs; businesses don't teach their employees to learn from the opposing communication and positioning of competitors; political parties focus more on ridiculing the opposition during campaigning than understanding in the hope of connecting with opposing party members and, more importantly, voters; communities focus on, well, the community, and leverage things like local sports teams, the arts and festivals to bring people together. And so on. No, everywhere I look its clear the world tries to bring people together by focusing on what we have in common as opposed to share what is unique about each and every one of us.
With that perspective, I would argue I was lucky to learn about perspective so early in my life. Most people only grasp the notion when they are older, way older.
Perspective. Okay, so what?
Let us look at why it is so important to understand the power of perspective and then apply it in our world. Let me share an interesting example.
Some years ago I was involved with a client who had authored an incredible business book on managing diverse cultures. This client is a renowned consultant who earns his living by helping companies better understand other cultures in order to better manage their international business and teams. He has trained thousands of employees of Fortune 2000 companies all over the world in the art of managing cultural differences. My client told me a story about the challenges he encountered when one of his clients, a very large South Korean conglomerate, loved his training and his book so much that they translated it into Korean and distributed 30,000 copies in their organization without his permission. In short, they ripped off his book and distributed it to their staff (this is one perspective).
What happened next is truly remarkable. My client at first was enraged and got on the phone to his attorneys who, smelling deep pockets, wanted to sue international copyright infringement. The aggressive call to arms of the attorneys quickly reminded my client of his area of expertise - cultural differences. Instead of looking at this infringement of his intellectual property from his perspective, he decided to look at it from their perspective. He quickly realized that the South Koreans were in fact honoring him by paying to translate his work and then handing it out to 30,000 staff – they were so taken by his work that they went to all this effort and expense. After all, his book was not available in the South Korean language, or any Asian language for that matter. Reflecting on this further, my client came up with a proposal. He contacted his client and asked for a meeting. He flew to Seoul and sat with the clients to discuss his book. The conversation went something like this:
"Dear Korean client, you have bestowed the highest honor on me by investing your resources in translating my book and gifting it to so many of your hard working employees. I am very humbled and honored to help them and you with your business. Because my book is copyrighted internationally and I don't have a publisher in South Korea yet, would you be interested in helping me publish my book in your country?"
The South Korean conglomerate happened to own several publishing houses and jumped on the opportunity to buy the rights to his book, not only in South Korea but also China, Mongolia, Nepal and Japan. My client sold several million copies of his book over the next few years in the region and profited from his relationship with the big conglomerate. This does not make the fact that the company had infringed on his copyright and illegally translated and distributed copies without his permission okay, but by taking the time to understand their perspective and where they were coming from, he was able to think through a better outcome. Had he chosen to sue the company he would have been well within his rights, but I'm not sure anyone would have truly won from that scenario. A little understanding went a very long way in this instance.
Back to the Dag…"You like Dags?"
The opportunity to see from another perspective and then form an understanding is all around us every day. The world has changed in an irreversible way at least 3 times in the last 10 years by my count:
2001 – 9/11
2008 – Global Financial melt down
2009 – Barack Obama elected US President
Now everyone will have a perspective on whether these 3 events are irreversible changes, whether there are more than just these 3 events that truly have changed the world, whether they are positive or negative, who is to blame, who is right and who is wrong, whether they have impacted us at all etc. Regardless of how you view it, we are in need of greater understanding and connection today than ever before. Whether it is with our bankers, our public servants, our customers, our friends or other countries and faiths, we lack the perspective that is needed to ensure greater understanding and connection in our world today.
As for the homeless mutts…well, the truth is those dogs are happy animals. They get to spend all their time with their master, the person they want to be with the most. And they help these homeless people in ways no charity or pocket change can, by being loyal friends who love and respect them no matter what. It’s a heck of a relationship and I’m not sure they would give it up for anything in the world. But then that’s just my new perspective.
Maui, TJ & Asia - Aug 2005
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