Embracing New Perspectives: How Leaders Can Innovate and Empathize for Better Decision-Making

Discover the transformative power of perspective with my guest, Brian Schubring, as we tackle the role it plays in effective leadership. We'll reveal why a shift in outlook is not just beneficial, but critical for innovation and empathy in our decision-making processes. Join us as we dissect the necessity for leaders to evolve their perspectives in the face of complex challenges, emphasizing how personal experiences and biases can both hinder and broaden our approach to problem-solving. We dive into strategies for altering perspectives through attitude adjustments, gaining altitude on situations, amplification of diverse viewpoints, and redefining our approach to issues, all with the goal of fostering inclusivity and driving positive change. 

In this episode, we also champion a culture of curiosity and openness, especially vital for seasoned leaders. We discuss how adaptability isn't just the domain of the young but a quality that can be cultivated at any stage in a career, much like surgeons who remain flexible and innovative in their methodologies. By sharing real-life anecdotes and practical strategies, we aim to ignite a passion for asking "why" in our listeners, deepening insights into team dynamics and problem-solving approaches beyond surface-level understanding. Allow yourself to be inspired by the rewards of embracing new perspectives, akin to the broadening vista from a parasail, which can guide our future choices and enhance life's experiences both personally and professionally.

You are invited to join Leadership Vision Online, free to the next 150 members! This new community allows you to connect with like-valued individuals, network, and learn from others while elevating your leadership skills through exclusive resources, live events, Q&As, workshops, and member-led discussions.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

So what do leaders do? They change their perspective. Most leaders understand that their unique perspective is just that Unique, but oftentimes, when the pressure increases and there's decisions that need to be made and we're facing really complex problems, our perspective sometimes narrows. So what do we need to do? We need to ask other people to enhance and broaden our unique perspectives so that we can make better decisions Using your perspective. It keeps you open to learning and increases your curiosity, because as long as we understand that our unique perspective is limited, we can change it by asking other people to help inform us.

Speaker 2: 0:43

You are listening to the Leadership Vision podcast, our show helping you build a positive team culture. Our consulting firm has been doing this for the past 25 years so that people are mentally engaged and emotionally healthy. Hello everyone, my name is Nathan Freeberg and before we jump into the show, I want you to imagine standing at a crossroads, where the path you choose could redefine how you solve problems, understand others and even how you perceive yourself. Today, we're going to be exploring this idea that changing your perspective isn't just about seeing things differently. It's a fundamental shift in how we approach leadership. Now, why is this shift crucial? Well, our perspective shapes everything our decisions, our interactions and our ability to navigate the complexities of leadership. It's molded by our experiences, our biases and our personal narratives, but it's also limited, a fractional view of a much larger reality. Today, we'll be discussing how stepping back, or even maybe aside, can open up new possibilities and insights.

Speaker 2: 1:45

Joining me today is Brian Schubring, our founder of Leadership Vision, and today we're going to dive into why and how leaders can benefit from altering their perspective. We'll explore some concepts of attitude, altitude, amplification and approach in leadership perspectives. From the power of mindfulness to the impact of simple acts like taking a walk, we'll uncover how these shifts in viewpoint can be both temporary and lasting, shaping our leadership and our lives Now as leaders. The way we see the world isn't just about our vision. No, it's about our readiness to embrace change, to innovate and to lead with empathy and inclusivity. So, as we embark on this journey of reflection and discovery, ask yourself how well do I really know my own perspective? Brian hello, how are you today? I'm doing well. How are you? I am well too. We should shout out it is Linda's birthday today, the day that we are recording this, and it's 50 degrees outside in sunny it's 50 degrees outside in sunny.

Speaker 2: 2:50

You know it's not quite that warm here in Portland, but as I'm looking out my window in my office slash recording studio, I'm reminded that like a year, a little over a year ago, I didn't have this view. I couldn't see this tree in this way because we did remodeling, we put an office on the top of our garage and I thought it was just kind of a cool illustration or a cool metaphor as we're talking about changing perspectives today, because I see trees in different ways. I see my neighbors like a Koi, pond, bamboo grove thing back there in a way. I never saw it before and I wonder if we can begin this conversation by just talking about maybe. What do you mean when you talk about perspective? You know it's one thing to look out at the neighbor's yard through the backyard and then go up, you know 15 feet to the side. What is the perspective of a leader? Let's kind of define that as the baseline and then we'll talk about why and how we need to change it.

Speaker 1: 3:51

When I speak of perspective, I imagine someone like standing on a compass, facing a specific direction, and by perspective I mean a person's view on reality, like their unique direction that they're facing. Their perspective is that great clarity of what people see when it comes to making decisions or how they're building their relationships and how they're just facing challenges. It's something that is clear. Perspective could be intuitive and, as you mentioned in the introduction, their perspective, or all of our perspectives, are shaped by our lived experiences, lessons learned, meaningful relationships, and that perspective is something that is unique to us. No one else shares the same perspective that we share, but the mistake that sometimes we make is that we believe that everyone shares the same perspective and everyone agrees with the way that we see the world, and so I think it's really important for us to consider what perspective do I have and how is that perspective in forming how it is that I make my way through the world.

Speaker 2: 4:59

So we're talking about why leaders should change their perspective. But you just said we need to understand what our perspective is. You have to understand your own perspective before you can change it. How does one do that? Understand their perspective? Where you're coming from, I like what you said about like kind of the lived experiences that I immediately started thinking about some other podcasts where we're talking about like where you grew up and your family of origin and like all those different things. So is that kind of where it starts?

Speaker 1: 5:30

Yeah, I think some really simple, real simple questions to ask yourself when it comes to you know, understanding your unique perspective is ask yourself questions like this what is my natural and normal thought process? Second question is when it comes to making decisions, when is it that I feel I'm making the best decisions? Another question could be what types of people do I love to hang out with, like, where do I naturally spend my relational time? And the fourth question would be where do you find your most energy with other people? And just think about the kinds of roles you're in where you feel like you're really making a contribution. If you ask yourself those four simple questions, you can begin to hone in on your unique perspective and what is giving you the information that you're looking for and what information is coming clear when you're facing that specific direction in your life.

Speaker 2: 6:24

I like that because you can do that in a variety of different environments at work. I don't know if you have much choice in your family, but like in friend groups and other areas to try to identify oh, this is my perspective, this is who I like to be around, this is the areas that kind of naturally sort of produce some of the results that I want. We've got several reasons here about why leaders should change their perspective. I think we all know that leadership involves change and so you know a variety of different change, whether that's thrust upon you or you're deciding it. So when we're talking, adding this into the sort of the mix, the conversation about change, why is it important for leaders to change their perspective? You touched on it briefly in the cold open, but maybe expand on that. I think there's a couple of key reasons or benefits to doing that.

Speaker 1: 7:17

One of the things that I think is important to consider when considering your perspective when you navigate change, is that our perspective usually embraces specific patterns of how it is that we navigate and deal with change, and those patterns are there because they've been really helpful or successful for us and those patterns have been reinforced over time. However, there may be changes that we're facing that our patterns may not have the answers, because our perspective hasn't ever experienced this type of change before. So I think one of the opportunities for growth is when change is happening. Maybe one of the first things we do is we ask others how it is that we may be processing our decision-making through that change or what kind of attitude we should be embracing in navigating that change, because resiliency to change is crucial when leading other people. And how is it that your unique perspective is helping with the resilience when change is arising?

Speaker 2: 8:23

Yeah, I think that resiliency to change is so interesting. I have four young kids and we're trying to build some of those skills into them, and what I always find interesting is and I could get a bunch of kid examples but whenever I'm trying to solve a problem. So another key point here is that there's an you can really do a better job solving problems, and for me, I have a carpenter that I've worked with for years and whenever there's something I'm thinking to do, like to the house, solve some little problem, I'm like I'm thinking of doing this, is that a good idea? And he quite often is like, no, don't do that. There's go buy this product or do this thing. Or it's like, oh, I wasn't even aware of that. It's almost like I was down the totally wrong aisle at Home Depot. So talk a little bit more about how an openness to being changing your perspective can really help you solve problems, make better decisions and, I guess, ultimately arrive at a more successful outcome to whatever the thing is that you're working on.

Speaker 1: 9:26

One of the things I want to start with I like your example is whenever you're looking at problem solving, you can be guaranteed that every individual that makes a comment on the problem will have a different perspective. Right, and one of the things that I think is interesting is that leaders who change their perspective. They're non-judgmental and they're not threatened by other people's perspectives. They just see these perspectives as different data points and the determination on which would be the choice for the problem that's facing them. We don't know that yet. We're just asking for different perspectives because, just think of it, a perspective is like a lens, like a lens through which you're viewing a problem or you're viewing a decision, and each of those lenses varies, and lived experience also contributes to how a person is interpreting what they're seeing through their lens. So by changing your perspective, you're actually increasing your adaptability to problem solving. You'll be achieving better outcomes, and by asking for other people's perspectives, you're actually being more inclusive in the problem solving and the decision making, because you're asking for people to contribute.

Speaker 2: 10:46

This reminds me a little bit of and I can't remember the Malcolm Gladwell I think was Malcolm Gladwell. I read something in one of his books about how it goes against what you might think, but younger you're talking about, like surgeons, and younger surgeons actually are better at solving problems and making decisions versus older ones. So, like, if you're going in for heart surgery, you don't necessarily want the 60 year old, you know person who's been doing it for 30 or 40 years, because they're so set in their ways that they're not able, if something goes wrong, they're not able to like look for new solutions, whereas you know after they're, you know, well credentialed. A younger person is able to that. So what's the key or the trick for leaders?

Speaker 2: 11:31

I don't want to use this term, brian, but you have been a leader for many years, longer than I. So how does someone with your youthful exuberance continue to be open to new perspective and to be willing to learn and change their perspective, versus just saying, oh, I've been doing this forever, do it my way, it's right. Does that make sense? You see where I'm going with this?

Speaker 1: 11:53

Yeah, it totally does, and I don't think that the age related comment that you made. It may be relevant, but what I have found is I'm often surprised by leaders with a lot of experience who have always practiced and openness to hearing other people's perspectives, like they've been open to listening people look over, who are looking over their shoulder metaphorically. They're at decision making tables where everyone's voice is included. That's one side and the study that you're referring to.

Speaker 1: 12:29

I've also read that same book and I've seen that example cited in other works and this idea that surgeons, like a lot of us, fall into successful patterning on how it is that we do what we do, and I think one of the examples was of a surgeon who asked for an esteemed surgeon, a retired surgeon, to watch him do the operation, and this retired surgeon was actually asking like why do you make that approach?

Speaker 1: 13:02

So he was even curious like why is it that your perspective would say approach this the same way, where if you changed your hand position or you changed the way you were looking at this, it would be a different procedure? I like that because sometimes we have a way that we physically engage the world around us that just works for us and we're not thinking about why it is that we're making that specific physical or intellectual approach to a problem. Listening to other people's perspectives with openness and humility may result in us having a completely different approach that could be more efficient. Maybe the decision has longer lasting implications, or a unique perspective may remind us that we already know what the right thing to do is or what the right decision already is, and we just didn't see it because we were too locked in and we're too close.

Speaker 2: 14:00

And that closeness is sometimes like both our greatest superpower and our greatest weakness. And so I wanna move to the second part here and talk about, like how do we actually change our perspective? And the first one I feel very connected with and just embracing curiosity and asking what do you see? And we've been talking about this for a while, but I've been working with a running coach for the past six months just to try to kind of fix some injuries and kind of get faster, now that I'm a little bit of an older runner, and two races ago I was like, hey, I've been doing this for a long time, but I'm just curious what do you typically recommend to eat before a race? Again, I've been doing this for years. Kind of have the same thing. And he's like try avocado toast. And I was like what?

Speaker 1: 14:50

And I'm like why Like that is you gotta bring a toaster to the race? Yeah, I know he's like we'll do it at home. Where's our an outlet, Exactly?

Speaker 2: 14:58

I think it's like a $20 meal at like a fancy restaurant. But he said like, and he's like. The fat in the avocado actually slows down the processing of like the goo that you'll take right before the race, and so it actually it's.

Speaker 2: 15:12

I mean, it's a common thing, but I was like, oh, I never tried it and I tried it and I mean I ran a very good race. I don't think it was just specifically that, but point is, I could have like been like I'm not gonna bother asking him this question because of you know, I've been doing this a long time. I know what I'm doing. I would have kept the same old, same old. And so how do you encourage leaders you work with who feel like they're experts, to be curious enough? Because sometimes I think curiosity is either something you have or don't have. I mean, there's certainly things that I'm very curious about and other things that I'm not, but how do you teach this or grow this in someone Like what's your kind of I don't know best activity or a tool or some way that we can like actually become more curious?

Speaker 1: 16:32

This is really interesting because one of the simplest and most repeated ways that I encourage leaders to be curious is to ask this question Well, why?

Speaker 2: 16:46

Why do you ask that, Brian? Why do you ask them to ask that?

Speaker 1: 16:49

Because we hear someone make a statement, we watch them with certain behaviors over time. Then we complain about it because it like there's something about what they're thinking, what they're contributing or how they're acting that's not sitting right with us, because maybe our perspective doesn't see the whole picture. I will often say to these individuals have you asked them why? And nine times out of 10, their response is well, why would I ask them that? And my response is because you don't know. You don't know what the motivating factors were. You don't know who else they were talking to. You don't know, maybe, what data points they were actually using. You're not sure what their end goal was.

Speaker 1: 17:36

Ask them because if there's any tension and there's tension in a relationship and we're not curious we're going to be quicker to judge, to contain the tension, and sometimes we're afraid to ask why or what do you see or what are you thinking, because we're afraid that our tension will increase or the anxiety will increase. And I have found that it's exactly the opposite that our anxiety goes down because we're hearing more information which fills in more of the story. So asking why and I've a secondary point to this is I've often encouraged leaders to ask individuals by name. What are you seeing, what are you thinking as you're going through the decision-making process? So, as a leader is walking a team through a decision-making process, who are you actually inviting to contribute to the solve? Just by asking well, what do you see, what are you thinking? Or what decision do you think we should be making, or what information are we missing, what information are we over? Emphasizing? There are many different ways to ask this question, right?

Speaker 2: 18:47

I think a quick tool is you can keep a journal to sort of keep track of your curiosity, or even just Journaling is a great activity for a lot of reasons. But even just kind of ask your questions in your head and then be like, okay, I'm going to try to figure these, ask these questions later. This kind of leads us to a second point. In asking what do you see, or asking why is you have to do it? To cultivate understanding, or that's one way to change your perspective. And what I have found is sometimes the way I ask why comes across as being critical and sometimes it is why did you do that? But if I can get in the mindset, yeah, why in the world did you do that? It's all you know.

Speaker 2: 19:32

The other extra adjectives and adverbs yeah, but so to cultivate understanding and that's what I think I want you to expand on that more because that's what I think can be. So the example you gave earlier about the team members like well, why would I ask them? You know that person who was asked why, they may might automatically think it's the way that I was just doing it. It's like because something critical. But to truly help people ask why, in cultivating that curiosity or embracing curiosity to cultivate understanding. That seems a little tricky. How do we what's an activity or what's a way that you can help people do this more?

Speaker 1: 20:10

One of the important things to ask with this idea of cultivating understanding is to ask what am I missing? Is there any other information that will help us? Or simply ask other people directly what would you contribute? Because every time we ask these questions, we're gaining a little more understanding on what is actually happening around us and what's happening within us. Another way to cultivate understanding is to reflect or ask other people when have we faced this type of decision before? And to remind ourselves that we've navigated situations this difficult before, to remind ourselves of some of the lessons that we've learned, to remind ourselves of, maybe, what some people did or how they contributed.

Speaker 1: 21:04

I think that's another great way to increase our understanding is by asking some of those historic, reflective types of questions. I also believe that cultivating understanding should always include the human element. How are people feeling in this situation? What are some of the emotions that we might need to address as we're making this decision? To remember that we are all human beings, that we will most likely gain a better sense of understanding by considering the human side of whatever the work is that we're doing yeah, completely.

Speaker 2: 21:45

The third tip or reason how we actually change our perspective is to enhance our analytical skills and to work the and you have in quotes actual problem. What does that mean? Expand on that.

Speaker 1: 22:01

I often think that our perspective overlooks our analytical skills, and by analytical skills I simply mean our ability to critically think, our ability to integrate data or information or other types of inputs that we wouldn't naturally integrate, because I believe that human beings are really great at solving complexities into simplities with efficiency, and I also believe that we have the capacity to integrate key pieces of information when necessary to work the actual problem, because sometimes, if we're more intuitive, we may intuit our way through a decision-making process and we're missing the actual problem.

Speaker 1: 22:49

And sometimes the data is actually informing us on where the actual problem is or what the actual contributing factors are, and many times we overlook that. How often have I met a leader who says they don't have the time to consider some of those smaller details and some of the facts of what's going on? And I was in a conversation two days ago and this leader was saying facts are facts. What are the facts? What are the facts? I thought now that is how you get to working. The actual problem Is get past the opinions, get past the intonation, get past the adjectives and remind yourself what are the facts, what are those level of details that root us back into the actual problem instead of the perceived inflated or over-amplified problem.

Speaker 2: 23:41

Because sometimes, if your perspective as a leader is a simple example, is like people love this product, I feel it in my gut. My perspective is people love this, but the facts say that nobody is buying it, no one is downloading it. The numbers keep going down month after month. It's like, but I think we've got something really great, it's like. Well, the facts don't suggest that.

Speaker 1: 24:03

So then, that's Like people need to press down on an actual keyboard on the phone. They want to have that Right. That explains.

Speaker 2: 24:11

Right, there's a great one of Adam Grant's book. He talks about how, like Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos and a couple other very famous business people have built these great companies, all invested in the segue.

Speaker 1: 24:28

Oh that's right, and there's like some really what's a segue again?

Speaker 2: 24:32

A segue is like that stand up little thing you see in Mall. Cop Stephen the Shopping.

Speaker 1: 24:37

Mall.

Speaker 2: 24:37

Or like the Minneapolis segue tours. But they thought they were gonna revolutionize the way humans like Human transportation.

Speaker 2: 24:44

Transportation exactly. But my point is they were kind of ignoring a bunch of stuff because their perspective was so myopic and so tunnel vision of this thing. And so I think this is a great example of what can happen to even brilliant leaders, even people Apple and Amazon and like these companies that are just giants and like I mean, that's exactly what can happen when you don't change your perspective. But anyway, brian, how do we wrap this up? If you could leave folks with like one thing or one idea or one tip or tool or trick or message to begin their leadership journey this year with some change in perspective or an openness in perspective, what would that?

Speaker 1: 25:32

be. My invitation to everyone would be to Embrace the risk of changing your perspective, because I promise that the view you gain from that changed perspective Will stick with you and it will inform you the next time you might be getting stuck. Oh and, nathan, this reminds me of a vacation that we were on, where Camila as you know, was begging us to go parasailing oh, so the three of us up in a parasail.

Speaker 1: 26:03

But, as you know, once you get off the deck of the boat like, your perspective changes immediately and then you can see a whole different perspective of the landscape, the topography, where the hotels and the resorts were, its experiences. Like that, where it may not seem like it's a good idea at first, but once you do change your perspective it's memorable and the next time the opportunity comes along you may not be as reluctant to take that challenge. So think to yourself one of the times where you did take a risk to change your perspective and you have, and you gained that sense of Understanding. Remember what that felt like and how confident you were once you change your perspective and that you didn't lose your own perspective. But it helped. But that new perspective helped inform you on Making a better decision, forming a stronger relationship and building trust with your team.

Speaker 2: 26:55

Brian, thank you so much. This is always fun.

Speaker 1: 26:58

Thank you, nathan.

Speaker 2: 26:58

Appreciate it and thank you, listeners, for listening to the leadership vision podcast, our show helping you build positive team culture. If you had questions about anything you heard in this episode or any of our other Podcasts episode or online resources, we would love it. You can reach out to us at connect, at leadership vision consulting comm, and we would just love to interact with you to learn more about your team, you as an individual leader and maybe how we might help you Build into a leader who has a greater perspective and is able to achieve more in the new year. You can visit us on the web at leadership vision consulting comm, or find us in all the socials. Subscribe to this Podcast, leave us a review, sign up for email newsletter all of the things and we will get back to you immediately with any questions. I'm Nathan. Free break and.

Speaker 1: 27:46

I am Brian.

Speaker 2: 27:46

Schuber and on behalf of our entire team.

Speaker 1: 27:49

Thanks for listening.