Black and white, right and wrong. From a young age we are tought what is ‘normal’, what is acceptable behaviour and how to be part of a system. When you think about it, our beliefs and convictions say more about our perspectives than about who we are.
Ones opinion on a situation is strongly and literally influenced by ones point of view (direction from which you are looking) Are you looking at the front or at the back of the subject? What have you been tought about it? What have you been conditioned to believe?
What many europeans percieve as perfectly acceptable behaviour might be offensive to many asians. One person’s culinary delicacy is another person’s worst nightmare.
I believe in the strength of changing perspective on a regular basis. Change position with somebody. See it from their perspective. It’s generally a very hard thing to do. And even when we think we’ve done it, we often only travelled half way.
In Neuro Linguistic Programming we are tought to seek the ‘nerk-nerk’ state. Imagine being an alien (called nerk-nerk), who landed on earth. Exploring and seeing and nog judging. Forming a fresh and unbiased view on reality. This state of not knowing will help you differentiate between facts and filters. Why do you think an external consultant can have such a positive impact on an organisation?
Changing perspective can give a refreshing view on matters new and old. It can give a sense of freedom to percieve things more objectively. To break free from things tought and to decide for yourself: is this black or is it white? Grey maybe? Do I even want to label it? Or just as importantly: do I need to recalibrate? Often, facts change but we forget to change our perspective (opinion).
Mike Over Matter // The NLP recruiter 