The Gift of Perspective

Having a global perspective enables you to learn from others, and can open up your business to new opportunities. It can also help you grow in new ways. Further training to ensure that business leaders can effectively make decisions within a leadership role is top of mind for management

Going back to our earlier episodes this season on mindsets and where our beliefs come from, we often take on a belief that has been ingrained in us from our earliest years. In my case, the idea of having an "opinion" was constricted by parents due to the old adage of "parent knows best or your opinion doesn't matter."

Here is where the conflict of mindset came in and WHY working with the word "perspective allowed me to move into a whole new level of leadership

So why was there a conflict in my "subconscious" about opinion/perspective and how did this play out by truly looking at meanings and then owning PERSPECTIVE as a weighted tool for leadership?

per·spec·tive

a particular attitude toward or way of regarding something; a point of view.

o·pin·ion

a view or judgment formed about something, not necessarily based on fact or knowledge.

Notice the difference in the meanings (although sometimes- people use perspective and opinion interchangeably) but what leapt out at me was the "point of view" and the "judgement" contrast. Taking judgement out of the equation SHIFTED my belief system.

Understanding the Other Person's Perspective Will Radically Increase Your Success AND Increase Your Ability to Communicate Your Own Perspective

The key to successful relationships lies solely in our ability to understand the perspective of another and to communicate our own. Here are 6 ways to improve your perspective in business.

1. ASK QUESTIONS. ASK WHY. BE OPEN

2. HIRE FROM OUTSIDE

3. CO LOCATE. GET TO KNOW PEOPLE

4. INCREASE AUTONOMY

5. BE CLEAR IN YOUR COMMUNICATION. GET CLARIFICATION

6 RESPECT DIFFERENCES.  

Joya is currently enrolling members for international (Europe) and domestic (NYC) strategy days. She also leads a year-long intensive mastermind of C-Suite level women, which is accepting applications for 2024.

https://www.joyadass.com/
info@joyadass.com

Transcript

Drink Like A Lady Podcast with Kathie De-Chirico Stuart & Joya Dass Season #2 Ep 6

Speaker 1 (00:01):

Hey, there it is Wednesday at three o'clock Eastern time, which is the time that we host the drink, like a lady podcast, which is designed for emerging female leaders to not only get a seat at the bar, but also to get a seat in the boardroom. And joining me very shortly here is going to be my cohort and Mike, uh, partner in crime. Kathy did Shareco Stewart, who is a business strategist, and we host this podcast every single week on Wednesdays to really talk to you about things that can make you show up better as a leader. And we've talked about a bunch of things in season two, and we've really been focused on mindset, the power of mindset necessarily like what's an, what's a fixed mindset. What is a growth mindset? What are your belief systems and how has failure really informing how you're moving forward in your business? Um, it's funny. Cause yesterday I had read for my book club, um,

Speaker 2 (00:58):

At the

Speaker 1 (01:00):

Book by Bernay Brown.

Speaker 2 (01:07):

I think that they're in the wrong interface again, because this is a call, not the live. So I'm going to see if I can add you, but I'm actually already on. So I'm going to see if I can add you from the other interface. I'm going to click off effective leader. Right? You can have perspective from your direct reports, point of view. You can also have it. Hi Kathy. There you are. I'm here. How are you? I know I will. And by the, and by

Speaker 1 (02:59):

The way, we're asking everyone to please share your questions and ask us questions. As we run through our six tips today on what it means to have perspective as a leader in the workplace, Kathy, how's it going today? It's it's good. If I can figure out the Instagram live repetition for you.

Speaker 3 (03:16):

Perfect. Before to sum up in Vermont.

Speaker 1 (03:19):

Yes. It looks like you've got a different background today. I'm very jealous. I need some downtime right now

Speaker 3 (03:24):

For it. Yeah, it's nice. We're very fortunate to have a second home and we enjoy it often.

Speaker 1 (03:31):

So today I was telling everybody here that having a perspective is such an important piece of leadership because it really enables you to learn from others and it can open up your aperture to new opportunities. And I know that you have a good story on this from your time at various companies.

Speaker 3 (03:48):

You know, one of the things that is so important is, and I talk a lot about the meaning of words and what they mean to us. And then what that means is also, it goes back into our belief system, everything that we've been talking about, but recently, and I don't, it doesn't matter how long you've been in business, how long you've been in relationships. All of a sudden, if you really take a look at yourself, you can see where you may be holding yourself back. So I went into, um, a male consultancy for two different parties, and it's a very strange relationship between the two at this point. And, um,

Speaker 1 (04:22):

Sorry, you said strange, right? Not strange. No, it's strange train. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (04:26):

I think most relationships are somewhat strange in that. Um, so it was very strained and, and I went in and um, I was taken back by how this man talked to me and at one point I'm thinking this is just not good, but then I just calmed down and I sort of watched myself and we talked about this in prior episodes. I watched what was going on and I just relaxed into it. It turned out to be quite good by the end of it. And at the end of the meeting, um, that evening I had dinner with two gentlemen and I told them about this and I thought, I cannot believe this is what I said out loud. I said, I can't believe this gentleman talked to me like this. And they said, well, what, what what's, what's the problem? And I said, well, I'm a woman.

Speaker 3 (05:18):

And they said, Oh, he, they said, because you're a player and he sees you as a player. He treated you like a man. He treated you equally. Oh. And for me that was a whole new perspective. So I didn't feel like I didn't feel offended anymore. I felt like, okay, I'm in the game with this guy. So it's about listening to other people, having a vulnerable conversations. Uh, Bernay Brown talks about that a lot, um, and how we can look at ourselves differently in situations. So that's, that's a new one that just happened. And it's still right from learning.

Speaker 1 (05:58):

I just read Bernay, Brown's dare to lead for our book club that we're in yesterday and she talks a great deal about vulnerability. But I, what I was surprised to learn is that those that are not vulnerable are the ones that don't grow. It actually takes a great deal of courage to be able to grow it. You know, it's so important. And I think that comes with maturity. It comes with experience and it comes with once again, being able to look at yourself as not as a failure, but really as someone who's working towards success. So, Kathy, I want to say a shout out to those who are joining us as CNET is joining us. She's with ups. I see Rita Patel joining us from Detroit. We've got a lot of folks joining us. Please ask us questions. But on today's episode of drink, like a lady, we are talking about the power of perspective. And today we're going to share the five ways that you can gain perspective and hopefully move the needle on your business. And so Kathy just shared a great story of how flipping the perspective worked in her favor in a business negotiation. But I would wish that the first thing and I, this is easy for me to do as a journalist, but I always have to ask a lot of questions to the point that he used to really annoy my father growing up. But I would always ask why. And I would ask him to understand,

Speaker 2 (07:24):

I think Eddie, to hear it

Speaker 1 (07:34):

Also able to understand how we can create a much more solid relationship. And, um, you know, one of the things that I learned in business school and in negotiations, if you understand the other person's perspective, you understand their viewpoint. You're you actually get further along for both of you and you create a much solid, more solid relationship. And so we welcome a net. We welcome all of our folks who are listening right now to ask us questions, but we are sharing about the power perspective, Kathy and I. And number one is to really ask questions, ask why I remember Kathy hearing the story about a gentleman who was a colleague of mine that was sharing the story, but there was a guy on her direct, uh, who was a direct report of hers. And he just, just couldn't get it together. Couldn't get it together, just wasn't making his deadlines.

Speaker 1 (08:21):

And so she finally had to take them and set them aside and be like, you know, what's going on. You're usually a top performer. I'm not understanding what's happening here. And it turns out that his wife had had a miscarriage and not only had she had one, she'd had several and it was really starting to weigh on them as a couple. And it was really starting to weigh on him as a person. And that was how he was showing up in the workplace. But it wasn't until she took him aside, sat him down and asked, why was this person ever going to divulge it? He was never going to develop that in mixed company. So it's so important as part of leadership is to ask those tough questions and ask why number two for gaining perspective is from the outside. And I'm sure that you've probably done this in your career.

Speaker 3 (09:00):

Yeah, very much so I, uh, w the things I've often said to people is that you really need a mix of experience. And, um, the new generation coming into companies, they have a different, once again, their viewpoints are very different and we are in a consumer. Well, most of the business I was in was consumer oriented. So allowing that, um, hire from the outside gave a different component of what they saw versus what you saw. It can become very, um, compartmentalize when you have just the same old people making the same old decisions and going in the same old direction.

Speaker 1 (09:34):

Right. Right. And that asks us a question. We're both here to answer some questions about leadership. And I know a net is a supervisor at ups. She's definitely a woman in leadership. So number one, to gain perspective as a leader is to ask the tough questions, ask why, and be open number two, hire from the outside. If you're looking for a fresh perspective, and you're an industry, a why not hairy from industry B, because that perspective might actually bring some new, fresh ideas that you wouldn't have considered before. Number three cold locate, get to know people on the ground. I'm Kathy. I just got accepted into a business mastermind, and we had the option for the retreat that happened this weekend in Atlanta to go in person or to attend virtually and hands down the decision was to go in person, because I know that you're going to form deeper relationships when you're in front of people. And you can put faces to names versus being on a, on a computer screen.

Speaker 3 (10:29):

Well, it's, what's important. When I wanted to go in and do business development with, uh, large companies, it was more important for me to get on a plane and to get in front of them. It showed that I was committed to them as well, by going there also they're comfortable right off the bat. And then you can actually see what else is going on in their world. Um, that co locating is so important in terms of your overall success. You can do it. My suggestion is pack your bags and go.

Speaker 1 (10:58):

So, uh, as I can't pronounce her name, but I think this, her name is Moomoo says is, is changed from within what you recommend by giving people in the company, new jobs, or would you recommend getting a new perspective by hiring somebody from the outside? Obviously that is context dependent. But the one story that I was thinking about was Google news services. When Google new services started up, they really had a bunch of tech people that were sitting around the table, but what did they really know about news? So in this particular case, they went and hired people from Reuters, hired people from the associated press, people that were veterans in the news business to be additive to this product that they were bringing to market. So, you know, can you get perspective by hiring within the company? Of course you can, but in this particular context, in that particular situation, this service really needed to hire from outside to make sure that they were getting a journalist perspective on the news that they were putting out into the world.

Speaker 3 (11:50):

That's a great story. When I was hired actually to the wall street journal and doing brand development, um, I was not a media person. I was actually a retail wholesale person in that world. So they actually brought me in of that, uh, viewpoint, that, that perspective and in consumerism, because it's a little different when you're talking media and, and it's so rich, uh, once again, you can cross promote that may, that may make sense depending on what you're looking to do, but when you're really looking to recreate, or co-create something bigger, you may need to bring someone in from the outside.

Speaker 1 (12:23):

Yeah. And I think about my business coach, whom I hired, you know, before I jumped off the ledge and decided to start my own company. And while he did not know anything about a woman's leadership platform, I hired him because of his work in operations, work in operations with doctors, work in operations with people that ran swimming schools work in operations with people that had small mom and pop businesses. He knew operations. And that was why I needed to hire him because I was operationally deficient and I needed somebody to become that person for me. So you can always hire and get a perspective at least on a 10 99 basis. So, number one, today, folks, we're talking today about the power of perspective, especially when you're a leader. And number one is to really ask those tough questions, ask why number two, hire from outside, hire from outside of your vertical to get a fresh perspective, number three, get on the ground. Co-located be with people to really understand them and what motivates them. And number four, I'm going to pump this one to you, Kathy, increasing autonomy. We always hear that it's not enough to just give somebody a fish. You got to teach them how to fish.

Speaker 3 (13:25):

This is so critical. Um, you know, for, for building teams and then for building yourself in terms of what your impact is. Um, most people don't really know how to just speak directly. What they do is they speak in obtuse language. I mean, I do the same thing. Sometimes. I, I find myself well, what I'm always doing at the end of it, if someone, I was just in a forum and someone asked me a question, I answered this gentleman. And I said, did I answer your question? Which is so important because we can talk a lot, but we may not have answered the question because we may not have, um, sent this up what they were really doing. So communication is key. It's so important in terms of understanding and actually being clear in terms of the direction that the individual is working to find from us

Speaker 1 (14:14):

And a productivity expert once said that, um, you know, when nobody acts out of malice or bad intention, people act out of bad direction. So if autonomy is something that you want to make sure that someone has make sure you've, over-communicated exactly what it is that they want and, or be able to do things up to the standards that you wish. So

Speaker 3 (14:34):

I want to drop, I want to drop this in as well. And the point is also to, to circle back, continue to circle back with them if they need you, but also make them feel comfortable to circle back, just to make sure that they're on the right road.

Speaker 1 (14:47):

We've got another question here. Cathy is perspective the same as mindset or the same as lens. And I think we would argue that that's not the case.

Speaker 3 (14:56):

No, but you know, mindset is your belief system. That is the hardware that moves it perspective is the software that comes in. And then all of a sudden you're able to see a three 60. None of us can see a three 60 on everything. And that's why it is so important. You know, all the points that we're talking about. So, um, you can have a certain mindset and then all of a sudden the perspective comes in and then re recalibrate, uh, your thoughts system.

Speaker 1 (15:24):

Yeah, I think about mindset is like, you know, um, move through. I've I've always had a whole bunch of like scripts from growing up in a household where money was for others. And so for me now, as an entrepreneur, it is so important for me to have a mindset that money is actually for me, I deserve it. I work hard at it and I'm going to earn it. So that was a shift in mindset that I had to make my perspective today as an entrepreneur versus somebody who was collecting a paycheck every two weeks is very different because I know that even though I have that mindset, I still have to put in the hard work. I still have to go in and pull, pull, pull, pull back my sleeves and do the hard work right. In a way that I maybe didn't have to wear all those hats when I was working for a larger network. So I think perspective, my perspective has changed because I know that the way money comes in the door is very different, but my mindset has to remain constant.

Speaker 3 (16:16):

That's, you know, that's really a wonderful example of, of shifting from, uh, certain lifestyles or certain career choices that, you know, in that shift, it's important to understand what is different in that shift. You can't be still working in the same, uh, process that you were working when you work for a company. That was a, that's a great example.

Speaker 1 (16:36):

Yeah. Neil was just joining us right now, pneuma. Uh, we are talking today on the drink, like a lady podcast about the power of perspective when you're a leader and your mind knows is a founder of her own business, out New Jersey. And so you're a leader, even if you're the founder of a business. And so, number one that you know, we're talking about the six ways to gain the power of perspective. Number one is to ask questions, ask why be open number two, think about hiring from outside. There's no better way to gain perspective than hiring somebody. Who's completely not out, not in your vertical. Number three, co-located get in front of people. I know it's hard with the pandemic, but if you can get in front of people, get to know them. And that's the strongest way to improve perspective, increase autonomy, nobody acts out of malice. They only act at a bad direction. You increase autonomy by empowering people as much information as they need to know. Number five is be clear in your communication. I feel like that's a close cousin of increasing autonomy. Isn't it, Kathy.

Speaker 3 (17:31):

It certainly is. And that is important in terms of clarify, you know, what you said, and versus what they've heard and vice versa, and to, to continuously circle back and make sure that you're both going in the same direction

Speaker 1 (17:45):

We were citing. Bernay Brown's book dare to lead earlier. And Renee Brown talks about the fact that sometimes as a leader, you want to be kind. And so you kind of skirt around the tough conversations, but actually you're doing yourself and that other person to service because they're just going to continue to underperform if you don't have those tough conversations early and often. So we all know that communication is a very, very important piece of perspective. Um, and number six is respecting differences. And I think that increasingly as we become a global, uh, workflow workforce, and we're working with people from many different cultures, respecting differences in the way people do things is really, really important.

Speaker 3 (18:24):

You know, this whole diversity and inclusion component of a business and organizations and our life is when you, first of all, if you've traveled around the world and I know Jody, you have, and I have to. And I absolutely, once again, my bags are always packed, as I tell everybody, cause you get to see life very differently. And I even know that, um, at one point I had brought a, but a team over to Vietnam and we were working with this, um, uh, manufacturing associates and my team who had never been there. Uh, three of them, the gentlemen were very direct and they were almost abusive in the way that they were. We're talking to the manufacturer manufacturing there. And what happened is when we finished up the meeting and because I had been there, you know, many, many times I went outside and we had sort of a Powell talking about, they look at relationships much differently.

Speaker 3 (19:16):

They don't look at it as competitive. They look at it as more as we're in this together. It doesn't mean that they don't always, you know, fulfill the, the needs that you have, but it does mean that that's how they look at. So when you're, you're too direct or you're too pointed, it can become something that is, um, that doesn't work. So, especially culturally, you know, I love it. I love to listen to people. I love to find out more of what they're thinking, how they were brought up. And by doing that, you actually create once again, you know, much more solid relationships.

Speaker 1 (19:48):

I always say this as a, as a new Yorker now for 24 years, I'm used to just being direct. I'm used to being confrontational, but I remember being in, um, Canada and I remember being in Paris, um, both of which are French cultures, but, um, my boyfriend had flown out ahead of me and I was coming in and I needed a key to the hotel room. And he was like, listen, I've left one at the desk. Don't worry. You should be able to get in when your flight gets in. And of course there was no key to be found I'm on the phone with them reading them, the riot act. And the guy at the front desk was like, man, can I help you? And I realized that my being allowed confrontational new Yorker, even though I was not directing in him does not play well in Paris. So being really sensitive to the cultural nuances and what works in other people's countries is really important. If you're going to be a leader in reading my boyfriend, the writer,

Speaker 2 (20:40):

Absolutely about where it was Nike.

Speaker 1 (20:49):

Um, so we are going to be back here next week and Kathy and I to talk at three o'clock Eastern time, as we always do what the drink like a lady podcast. And we only promise to do 20 minutes and we're at the 20 minute Mark, Kathy, what are we talking about in episode seven? You know what we're going to do? We're going to actually look at belief systems and how that plays into, uh, how we are financially. Uh, the way that we look at gender bias based on our old beliefs, um, and then become really aware of them. We're going to try to open that conversation up for individuals so that they can look at their own financial destination and uncover what is holding them back. This should be a very, very exciting conversation. I'm really juiced up for this because I feel like I have finally turned that corner. I've been able to turn the Titanic around and I'm really realizing that this chapter is about not only just surviving, I'm a great survivor, but this chapter is really about financially thriving and I'm starting to reap the benefits of that. So I'm really excited to have this conversation excellent as always. It's great to be here that they have a great time in Vermont. I will take care now. Bye bye.