ACTivity/ Momentum with Perspectives

Photo by Marco Xu on Unsplash

Manila, 29 April 2020 — What are 3 things leaders do for taking multiple perspectives?

One of the effective leadership behaviors we analyze in Grow3Leaders is the practice of taking multiple perspectives in the situations we are in. Adapting to COVID19 at home and work is such a situation.

This month, our exploration of how to take multiple perspectives has taken us to Three Bias Traps, situations When Perspectives Conflict, a paradigm for Allowing for Truth to emerge from different perspectives, and three resources for researching More about Perspectives.

In this post, we look at how to move forward with practice, which is what matters most.

Here are three practices that help us gain momentum, using a camera metaphor:

#1 Zoom Out

This practice lets us move freely out of our Personal World without being stuck there.

In our Personal World, working on our leadership takes the form of an inside job. Once we have done enough homework on taking multiple perspectives that matter in our Personal World, we can move on by framing and reframing our situations and then Zoom Out of our Personal World.

Zoom Out empowers us to confidently engage in our two other worlds, knowing that we are aligned enough in our Personal World and that we can return there for realignment whenever the need arises.

#2 Zoom In

This practice gets us to move into our Social World to bring out our best in working with other people.

In this world, we expand our conversations and discover that leadership is also a contact sport. We need to engage with other people, motivated by curiosity or by empathy—as in Daniel Goleman’s TED talk.

Zoom In lets us engage with people without being held hostage by unresolved leadership growth issues in our Personal and Observed Worlds. It allows us to listen, explore, and collaborate with commitment.

#3 Pan Camera

This practice opens more perspectives for us in our Observed World, so that we don’t get stuck in silos.

In our Observed World, we decide that growing our leadership is about deciding to play a bigger game. This does not necessarily mean leveling up in a hierarchy, although it can be. More importantly, it is about the contribution we decide to make in our careers to people, planet, and prosperity in the 21st century.

Pan Camera means getting out of our own favorite silos and moving our perspective to others across the many boundaries that divide people. At the Asian Development Bank, I learned that the most important problems to be tackled were not inside but between silos. “Trespassing is encouraged,” our boss told us.

Pan Camera is the act of deliberately trespassing across silos, which can be different sectors, places, disciplines, jobs, teams, ages, and so on, to focus attention and bridge divides where it matters to the bigger game.

Grow3Leaders Challenge

In Grow3Leaders, we practice the art of taking multiple perspectives in our workplaces. Not just this month with Perspectives is our theme, but all year round. This week we unpack three tools to help us do that.

We are a private community of leaders from countries around the world, and from different generations, who are committed to learning and practicing effective leadership behaviors ‘out loud’ and together to create positive change in our workplaces. It’s 21st-century leadership we’re after, not the way of the past century.

Joining us is free of charge—not free of commitment. Send us a request if you feel that you are up to our Grow3Leaders challenge and are ready to join together with three of your colleagues in the workplace. Please ask them first, and let us know the names.

We look forward to learning together with you and your team.