Perspective is everything. When you narrow in on the details of a situation, you also narrow your perspective. You also limit other ideas when you dissect a problem.
For instance, if you have an irritated client, you likely think about what went wrong or who is to blame. You likely dissect what happened into piles of right and wrong.
For instance, you may think It’s fitting that you immediately responded to a customer complaint.
However, It’s wrong that your client is overreacting and threatening to pull their business. It’s fitting that you did everything you could to meet a deadline, and it’s terrible that shipments and deliveries are frustrating results.
The longer you go down this thought pattern, the more frustrated you will be. Any time you try to put things into piles of right or wrong or good or bad, it will frustrate your momentum.
Any focus on problems is depleting. Tearing apart circumstances is always challenging, and you usually find there is no right or wrong.
It’s because you are focused on the past. It's something that happened yesterday, this week, or last month.
The problem is showing up in your present but its activity from the past. All fear, worry, resentment and doubt is about history. It’s the past dragged into your present.
You want to get your direction right.
If you can put all your energy and enthusiasm into solutions and your future, you will feel better and move forward.
It helps if you can broaden your perspective past the limits of the problem. Zoom out of the nitty-gritty details and look for common ground. Reach for any optimism or hope you can.
You’ll find you’re arguing for the same thing, but you disagree about how to get there. Instead of looking at what happened or the problem, look forward to what you want.
You want a strong relationship with clients- focus on that
You want clients who appreciate your value - focus on that
How can you help your client appreciate your value?
Can you show it to them? Illustrate your value not as a way to defend yourself but as a way to show progress. Show them where they were and where they are now. Show them progress.
Next, paint an even bigger picture. Zoom out to visualise your client thrive a year down the road. When people feel depleted by stress or conflict, it shuts down the learning centre in the brain. You want to turn it back on. You do that by helping others, and yourself feel good. Positive emotions release dopamine and serotonin- the feel-good hormones that support growth.
Think about how you feel as a customer when you have a problem, and a service provider just keeps throwing it back to you. You keep going around in circles about why it’s a problem, what went wrong and who's to blame.
As an example, recently my Twitter account was hacked. I notified Twitter, emailed, called repeatedly, and they kept telling me the account is suspended. We went around in circles. Not until someone looks into the hack and gave me a solution did it feel better, and we could move forward.
Often problems swell when we give way too much focus to the issues that stir up conflict.
Shorten the gap between problems and solutions. Issues are always from the past, and solutions are about the future. The longer you keep staring at a problem, the more depleted you will be.
Broaden your perspective away from details and toward solutions in the future. For instance, you don’t just want to get rid of the problems. You want to strengthen relationships.
Leadership Keynote Speaker
You may find it useful to take your eyes off specifics and go more general. Use another part of your brain. To see solutions that don’t exist right now, you have to visualise the future.
It takes figuring out what you want and imagining it coming to life. While you bliss out in this great visualisation, you feel great while doing it.
