Assessing issues from different job
perspectives
In
workplaces, people have to collaborate, work with, or work around others.
Others may affect your work and your work may affect other workers or customers.
Conflicts may arise.
It
can be useful to view issues form the other person’s perspective to understand
their concerns and attitudes. Pretend to be that person with their education,
experiences, skills, beliefs, values, and personal attributes. The saying, You have to walk a mile in the other
person’s shoes to understand their situation has a lot of merit. It may
not, however, be sufficient to understand that person’s concerns and issues and
can cause misunderstandings. Their mandate for working may be different from
yours. Their experiences, skills, and abilities may be different from yours. They
may be more or less capable than you are in dealing with the situation.
Supervisors may have more or less supervisory training than you do. New employees
may have more or less work experience than you do and their education may be
quite different. Their way of mentally processing information and their preferred
style of learning may be different from yours. Their communication methods may
not suit you and vice versa.
For you to effectively put yourself in other
people’s shoes to understand what is important to them, their issues, concerns,
and capabilities, you have to imagine yourself having the education,
experiences, skills, and personal attributes of those specific people. Ask
yourself, If I were that person, how
would I view the issue?
Viewing
issues from the other person’s perspective is very helpful when resolving conflicts
and negotiating win-win agreements.
The
book MetaThink provides a detailed
explanation about assessing issues from different job perspectives. MetaThink also addresses other topics
such as:
- using reasons, causes, effects, and consequences to
understand the workplace for what it is, identify what can go wrong and why,
and determine the consequences (i.e., LO-PEMEO)
- using a structured method for asking What if . . . ? questions to identify what could go wrong and the
consequences
- using the input-process-output model for work and technical
processes and to communicate effectively
Do
you think most people view issues from other people’s perspectives? What is the
downside if workers do not understand what motivates and drives other people to
behave as they do?
Gordon
Shand is President of HDC Human Development Consultants Ltd. He has 35 years of
experience designing and developing educational and training programs that have
excellent practical value and contribute to the customer’s business success. www.hdc.ca