Get Perspective On Your Problems

Have you ever noticed that someone else's problems can look far worse to them than they do to you? Have you ever thought how easy it might be to solve someone else's problem, yet they can't seem to see how easy it is?

Could that be happening to you as well?

I know that it happens to me. I can get choked up and bound by a problem that years later seams simple. Our perspective filters everything, especially our problems.

When problems are close to us, it can be hard to see them clearly. Our emotions tangle up with our logic creating a spaghetti like pile of abstract roadblocks. We can do better.

Our closest problems look very different to someone who is not so close to them.

Get some perspective. Get some help. Clarify what is really going on and see what it will take to untangle it.

What problem do you think needs a new sense of perspective today? How can you get that more detached, clear, and honest perspective?

-- Douglas Brent Smith

Front Range Leadership: Training Supervisors for Success

doug smith training: how to achieve your goals

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"An enemy is a person whose story we have not heard." -- Gene Knudsen Hoffman Without contrary evidence it always seems like we're right. Even WITH contrary evidence we get stuck often defending our story, our view. The story may not be wrong, but it is surely incomplete. Listen. Ask questions. Understand. Learn. High performance leaders look for common ground. -- doug smith

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What's the problem with anonymous feedback? The list is long. When people can say anything they want, without any accountability, they are sometimes rude. The feedback becomes exaggerated. Not knowing what to do with it (who do you try to please?) it frustrates the person receiving the feedback. Anonymous feedback encourages anti-social comments. It opens up a level of venting that is not healthy for either party. And, rather than building relationships, it tears them down. The best place for anonymous feedback is the garbage. It's too easy to be negative when no one knows who you are. Hold people accountable. Teach them that two-way communication is responsible, respectable, and useful. Let's keep the trash talking on the basketball court and build relationships of worth at work. -- Doug Smith

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