Someone recently recommended a casual word game to me and so I downloaded it onto my iPad. Sure enough, it’s an enjoyable time waster where you form words out of a 5 x 5 grid of letters. What’s a little different about this game, however, is that you can swipe left-or-right to rotate the board a quarter turn to see things from a different position. And that simple feature is what inspired this post.
While turning a game board isn’t a particularly revolutionary feature, something happened to me literally every time I’ve did it. My very first puzzle, I thought I had found every possible word but then I remembered the rotation feature. I gave it a try and, within seconds, I saw two words I’d failed to notice before. Another minute and I’d found a couple more. Another spin of the board and another word jumped out at me and another and then another. And so it went not only with that first game but literally every time I’ve played the app.
I get to a point where I think I’ve found every possible word combination so I then give the board a spin. My eyes immediately start jumping around looking for what I’d missed because every single time I find something that I had not seen before.
And so it is, I believe, with any problem we face.
Think about it. When we take on a challenge, don’t we typically see things from a certain perspective and bias that we’ve learned from experience? Sure, we can be creative in solving the issue but we have a way of thinking about problems, of asking questions and gathering information. Eventually, I find myself feeling good, or at least satisfied, that I’ve got a pretty complete picture of what’s going on and how to address it. That is, until someone else points out something I failed to pick up on.
I’m thankful for that when it happens but I’m also mentally kicking myself for not picking up on it sooner. And that’s where putting a spin on our perspective can help.
In business, we create personas to describe different types of users or customers and then use those personas to think something through such as a new product or service. It forces us to think like someone else and to use their eyes to view what we’re doing. Doing this has proven incredibly valuable because, just as in real life, a different perspective can give you new insights.
Likewise, doing this can be really helpful when you have a disagreement with someone.
I’m reminded of a time in college when I had a great conversation around one of those “never talk about this” topics with a friend who was on the complete opposite side of the issue than me. When she found out where I stood, she got angry and accusatory, demanding to know how I could be so stupid as to believe what I did. To her credit, however, when I asked if she really wanted to have a conversation around this, she said yes.
What followed was an incredibly deep discussion around a very controversial topic. Ultimately, neither of us changed our positions but I think both of us came away from that talk changed. For each of us, the other side went from being misinformed and simply wrong to instead having real and valid reasons for their position. I could understand and empathize with why they felt the way they did and it completely changed my view of the subject. For the first time, I saw things from their side and, while it wasn’t enough to convince me they were correct, I could now understand and even respect their position even if I still disagreed with it.
It’s ironic that this important life skill was inadvertently reinforced for me by a game but it was a good illustration of the value we can find in trying out a different perspectives.
Are there any places in our lives today that could benefit from seeing things from a different point of view?
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