5 Tips on Successfully Dealing with Perspectives

In business and personal lives we interact with lots of things on a daily basis. From meetings, phone chats, communication, working together, living together, raising a family, attending social functions, networking and really an endless life list of other interactions.   Sometimes in the nature of life, with many things competing for attention it’s easy to get stressed out and derailed.   It’s also easy to miscommunicate, misunderstand and make false assessments.

Two things I love are writing and diving. Because both are times of reflection and a way to put things in closer to reality perspective.   Activities like this as with meditation really allows one to see things in a different light, find calmness, direction, understanding and improve quality of life, both personally and professionally.  I'm a big fan of meditation and scheduling in times of reflection.

As with all things, everyone and everything is living their own story through their own lens.   People see things from their own narrowed perspective (all of us) and the fact is, no one can be in all places all at once or understand/see/know all things.   However, we can do these 5 Tips on successfully dealing with other Perspectives positively and productively.

1. Don’t take things personally

This is the last thing you should do, actually don’t do it at all. Sure emotions may be heightened at first and passion of ideas may flare, but to automatically default to “how appalling” or “shocking” or “I can’t believe you just said that” One should skip these all together and simply start heading toward a middle ground solution. The secret here is with pure compromising positive intent.   If both parties are willing to do this, then understanding perspectives is easy, mutually benefiting and even fun.  Then again, not everything can nor would want ‘to be resolved’, depending on the priority of the interaction. Sometimes it’s better just to skip to #5 especially in negatively persistent perspectives with no end or solution in site.

2. Clarify / ask questions

If the interaction or relationship is important to you, ask questions to clarify the situation. Repeat back to the other person(s) perspective what you are receiving. You’ll be surprised how a lot of times the person didn’t even mean the signals you received or vs versa and it was all false conclusions.   Effective questioning is crucial in understanding the situation at hand and setting boundaries of a relationship, professional or otherwise. If two or more parties are willing to invest the time in communicating with each other, then they come closer to sharing perspectives through effective questioning. 

3. Understand the why

A good default in constructively creating your own positive perspective is understanding why did this person do what they do? Being a pro-active communicator vs a reactive communicator. A lot of times one can just piece things together and make educated guesses on someone else’s perspective (again if the time spent is worth the relationship).   Asking directly is always the best way instead of dealing off of ambiguity or false assumptions, though understanding ones connections, exposed environment, situation, goals, motivations and associations go far in understanding the why in perspectives.

4. Be solution oriented

Through communication, effective listening and understanding comes resolution. Always be focused on the solutions instead of the issue.   Key to this is understanding the problem. It could be a misunderstanding, communication barrier, mistake on words false assumptions and/or incorrect information.  Instead of focusing on the problem and playing a blame game, be a solution finder and think the best of others, always.   The fact is, who really has time for anything else but to be solution oriented?

5. Move on

Unfortunately not all perspectives are positive, respectful and good natured.  When dealing with perspectives that are far out of sync with your own coupled with an overtly negative and aggressive in nature, it’s in most cases best to simply move on.   It doesn’t matter who is right or wrong, especially if dealing with an insistent and repeating draining energy perspective.   You’ll know these, as the language used in such situations will be mostly negative, non-constructive, non-objective, controlling, uncommunicative, aggressive, over bearing and non-solution oriented.   In cases like this, these aren't normal disagreements or professional differences of opinion; these are toxic perspectives that usually form out of poor environment, disrespect, rudeness or bad habits in dealing with others.  Continuing in these situations will suck the life out of you and derail you from positive focused mindsets; taking up your time from other positive associations if you let them.    In overly negative, ill intent situations that persist where 1-4 isn’t making headway, it may not be worth the time to continue to try to resolve; simply cut ties and move on to better matching positive perspectives!

Bring it all together

No matter what, the thing to remember when dealing with someone else’s perspectives weather positive or negative is to treat those with patience, understanding, empathy and kindness; this is practicing emotional intelligence.   Certainly that doesn’t mean let someone walk over you or be mute in reaction; one can still be firm, impassioned, persuasive and express a difference of opinion without being harsh, negative, ill-intended or uncompromising.   Then again, that is your perspective! (or mine at least).  The ultimate key in dealing with perspectives is to respect one-another differences, have tolerance while focusing on strengths instead of weaknesses, solutions instead of problems.   This will give the best opportunity in working together to achieve a common goal and in creating a mutually win/win situation.

Successful people are constantly learning and reflecting. They don’t get caught up in someone else’s perspective, nor do they let someone else dictate their emotions or decisions. Ultimately no matter what happens to you and which perspectives you are interacting with, just remember you’re in full control of your own reaction and the results of such a reaction in most cases are A + B = C

Have an interesting comment or story to tell about dealing with perspectives?  Would love to hear ! Please share in the comments below!

About the Author

Jason Bettinger is a Digital Marketing Pioneer, Influential blogger and Online Specialist.

For the last decade he has been helping businesses produce fantastic online results leveraging Social Media, Google SEO/PPC and landing page strategies that work together for effective Digital Marketing solutions. He regularly speaks on various online optimisation topics, Digital Strategy, Video and Social Marketing best practices, via events, webinars,     podcast and radio.  Having built, ran and sold more than 10 business, Jason today is NSW Director of Titan Digital, one of Australia’s largest Web and Digital Marketing Agencies and a Google SME Premier Partner.

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