GlobalBX

While there is a lot of talk about the recession being over, there is an equal amount of talk about it not being over yet. This, by and large, comes down to perspective. There are numerous definitions of perspective; one that comes to mind is: what you see depends on where you sit. Many of the conclusions made from this are nothing more than a set of distortions. So what is perspective? We often hear executives saying that the people who report to them “need to get some perspective”, and then it is anyone’s guess as to what that might mean.

Perspective is a little more than simply seeing something from a particular point of view. Take the story of David and Goliath for example. We have two armies sizing each other up; in fact they had been doing this for a number of days. We have seasoned soldiers contemplating their possible death at the hand of a nine foot giant, a huge chunk of a man; they were all focusing on the size of this Goliath fellow in relation to their size. They were attempting to design a strategy based on the size of their opponent… in relation to their size. You can appreciate the inherent problems in doing that. Then along comes David. Who was, apparently, not a very large man. The first thing out of his mouth is; more or less: lets go for it… you can’t miss a target that big.

The very asset Goliath held most esteemed as the best advantage over his adversary was his size, the best quality he could use to intimidate and threaten his enemy into submission was his size; and he could back that up with a whole load of very loud propaganda. He was very good at shouting his mouth off. David looked at that same evidence and saw it as his greatest advantage. You can’t miss something that big and that noisy… you could probably hit that much noise in the dark.

Okay so what is my point? What we regard as our biggest disadvantage may be the very thing that is our biggest advantage. That no matter how overwhelming something may appear there is always another way of seeing it, and that way is do-able. The thing making the biggest noise may not be a problem; it may be just a noise. When you feel like your options have dried up, perspective also dies.

A few years back there was an advert with the catch phrase; “what did you do with your Philips today?” Why not play with some of your ‘perspective’ today and be amazed with what you come up with.