Perspective is a powerful word and concept. The value of gaining perspective often drives our curiosity and desire to learn. At a basic level, it is our way of physically viewing the world around us but it extends to how we process, understand, and communicate all that we see. People can excel all along that continuum. Some have a talent for making unique observations while others possess deep abilities to empathize or describe. Still others leverage the passage of time to gain additional perspective.
My personal journey with perspective began when I was born with a lazy-eye. While I am proud of having a creative outlook, in a physical sense I do see things differently. For example, because I use only use one eye at a time, I do not have stereoscopic vision. My brain relies more heavy on other depth-perception cues such as size, shading, and movement to judge distances. These other cues improve my ability to see the world.
In a similar way there are other perspective cues that can be used to improve our understanding of the world around us. If you enjoy learning new things, and enjoy seeing things in new ways, then follow along for a few observations on perspective. New ways to look at the ways you look at the things, so to speak.
THE APPLE
Imagine if all you knew about an apple was what it looked like in a picture. Maybe you could infer information from its shape, shadow, and color. Perhaps you could draw a realistic apple. On the whole, however, you could only know a 2-dimensional facsimile of an apple. You could not know its 3-dimensional roundness without seeing it from other directions. You could not know the texture, taste, crunch, and smell without eating one. Even an apple in hand could not tell you about orchards and the experience that is apple picking. And one apple alone could not tell you about the varieties of apples that exist or the variety of uses for apples that have been invented for our enjoyment. Going from one 2-dimensional apple to a full appreciation of apples takes many additional angles, encounters, and accumulated dimensional perspectives. And so it is with nearly everything else.
Whether it is an apple, person, or organizational challenge, dimensional perspectives rounds-out our understanding.
A single point of view, in both physical and mental terms, limits our knowledge in very real ways. If a simple apple can be so insufficiently known from one perspective, what are the chances that nuanced people and complex issues can be understand with any ease? That’s why multiple perspectives is such a tremendous gift. Each additional perspectives moves our knowledge toward completeness. But it takes movement to find those new angles. It take empathy to see things from more than our point of view. It takes time to engage a subject more than once and to reengage it under different conditions. It even takes our other senses to learn what eyes alone cannot learn. It often takes discomfort. Above all, it takes curiosity to want to fully appreciate the subject at hand; to go to its source or destination. Whether it is an apple, person, or organizational challenge, dimensional perspectives rounds-out our understanding.
You like perspectives? How you like them perspectives?
VISION
It is interesting how often terms associated with eyesight are incorporated into the organizational leadership and management lexicon. We have vision statements, strategic outlooks, competitive insights, 100,000 foot views, and focus groups. We quip that hindsight is 20/20 and spend time on retrospectives. We leverage foresight and survey our organizational landscape. We give things a quick peek and then a second glance if it doesn’t look right. We worry about being left in the dark. With 50% of our brain involved in visual processing, it should be no surprise that vision factors heavily into our thinking and the words we use to describe our thinking. Vision and physical perspective informs our complex thoughts, our outlook, and our actions. so it makes sense that the two are ultimately very intertwined.
Vision and physical perspective informs our complex thoughts, our outlook, and our actions. so it makes sense that the two are ultimately very intertwined.
If physical vision and vision in organizational leadership are different entities, the parallels are useful as a thought exercise. Consider how our physical perspective can help us think about our organizational perspective. Hindsight and looking behind us can be a valuable source of organizational learning, but always reviewing what has happened does risk not seeing what is ahead. Foresight is similarly necessary, but in some sense akin to fortune telling since information is always hidden around a bend or over the horizon. Peripheral vision allows us to monitor environmental and contextual issues that surround us while keeping our focus where it needs to be. A good leader balances these skills. They are neither farsighted in their focus on distant strategic issues nor nearsighted in their meddling in today’s tactical challenges. They survey and spotlight issues near and far, ahead, behind, and to the side. They maintain a vision of where the organization needs to go while helping it avoid unexpected roadblocks. They see it all. Perhaps this is why they favor windowed corner offices in tall buildings.
CASTLES AND BEAN-PEOPLE
H. Reed Armstrong was an sculpture and family friend who taught art for many years. In his trade, he created beautiful bronze statues and sterling chalices. As a teacher, he taught us to draw. This was not coloring, but rather the skill of observation and employing a few techniques to realistically sketch a subject. These sketches could be refined into a final drawing, but that was not always the goal. Instead he aimed to help us internalize and realistically convey what we saw. Among his techniques, linear perspective and bean-beings stand as bookends and great examples of why observation is an important life skill.
Linear perspective draws all straight lines toward vanishing points. Structures appear three dimensional and objects closer to the viewer appear larger. The annual favorite exercise was drawing a medieval castle. Once a castle outline was done, shading, details, flora, fauna, flags, and people could be added to scale and with realism. Through it we learned to convey something with depth and realism - skills that have broad application.
Bean-beings, on the other hand, uses bean and oval shapes to draw living objects: torso, head, limbs. Like an art-store mannequin, shapes are drawn proportionally to maintain realism and can collectively convey a runner in motion or a horse at a trot. The shapes are fused and shaded to form the body’s shape and clothes or saddles could be added. Bean beings conveyed that essence of something fully alive and in-motion - again a broadly applicable skill.
Anyone who wants to improve how they empathize and communicate should consider the benefits of honing conveyed perspective as a skill
H. Reed Armstrong’s class emphasized practiced observation as the foundation for conveying what we saw with realism, depth, and motion. Anyone who wants to improve how they empathize and communicate should consider the benefits of honing conveyed perspective as a skill. Imagine how closely you would observe a family member or colleague if you had to convey their look, mood, and personality in a sketch. Not only would you be focused, but your observations would be deeply internalized. Don’t believe me? Pick up a pencil and try to sketch and convey the beautiful realism of something around you. You’ll find yourself centered and mindful of the future viewer of your sketch.
DA VINCI
Leonardo DaVinci must rank among the most curious people in history and should be primarily considered a master of learning. His insights ranged from art to nature to military weapons and he gained valuable perspective on, well, perspective. Although known as an artist, it is said he never delivered a commission because he always felt there was more to add. Commissions sat in his workshop until, following a walk in the woods or after dissecting a cadaver, he would add some embellishment based upon a new observation. His curiosity and observations took him deep into many subjects and then reappeared back in his art as a new embellishment or technique.
DaVinci’s insights into perspective center around three concepts: size, brightness, and clarity. The first, known as linear perspective, was popular in the Renaissance. Straight lines and vanishing points were used in a scene to convey depth with distance objects drawn smaller. The allowed the scene to maintain a truer to life dimensional realism.
The second technique came from DaVinci’s love of landscapes, a frequent subject of his art and walks. He noticed distant mountains that appeared light green were actually dark green once he got closer. Through this he surmised air was in-fact made of something long before air molecules were discovered. His art in-turn accurately used less-bright colors for more distant objects.
Finally, DaVinci observed that viewed objects are seen, and so should be drawn, in focus or out of focus. By considering the nature of our binocular vision, he understood that key objects can be drawn with more clarity to draw a viewer's focus. This is similar to how modern cameras use focal depth to focus on a subject, or blur a picture's background.
Through curious perspective and in considering how to draw what he saw, DaVinci intuited far more than many contemporary specialist and professionals.
Through curious perspective and in considering how to draw what he saw, DaVinci intuited far more about the human eye, physics of light, and the chemistry of air than many contemporary specialist and professionals. His art and the human body of knowledge certainly benefited as well. This is the power of observation and curious perspective.
THE PAINTER AND A LEMONADE STAND
There is a large painting showing a colorful scene of children selling lemonade in front of a house. I am the child half-falling off the bike, the other five children are my siblings, and the house is where we grew-up. Our family friend, Roxolana Luczakowsky Armstrong, created this painting in 1985-86 as a gift to my parents. When I first saw the final product, I remember thinking that some of her details were off. We usually set-up the lemonade stand in a different spot, the trees were wrong, the eyes were wrong, and the six of us were never all there together because of our age difference. These are details a photo would have gotten right, which is the point. Her painting, it turns out, reflected superb observational perspective and contained more detail than any photo.
Roxolana was an accomplished painter who knew our family well. She and her husband, Reed, taught most of us art in school over the years. We were also neighbors. Her studies, sketches, and final work built on this familiarity as part of a larger observational process that her profession demanded. The scene she created in the end, the one that never actually existed, captures so much more than one moment in time. It captures our individual personalities in the way that one child is take-charge, one is reading, one is day-dreaming, one is playing with youngest, and one (me) is falling over. It captures an activity and a place and it weaves together a story that no photo could tell. Today, with Roxolona’s permission, we each have copies of the portrait in our own homes while the original is still at the original house. It is colorful and evocative in truly special way.
A painter's observational perspective helps you see what is beyond any photographic instant.
Through an artist’s patient and practiced eyes, a good painting conveys a sense of not only being there but also of knowing what the they saw and knew. It tells a story. Employing a painter's observational perspective helps you see what is beyond any photographic instant. It helps you capture the narrative layers for a deeper understanding of the subject and the ability to communicate all those rich details.
SEE THEM WHEN THEY POOP {situational perspective}
How do we really get to know someone? Early relationships, both platonic and romantic, are largely curated and limited to uncontroversial outings and topics. Conversations are conducted and sustained over electronic mediums which robs us of impulse and unspoken detail. Relationships built only on profile photos, generic situations, and curated communications never benefit from our unique flaws and features. Uniquenesses that are the bumps, grooves, and good friction and make relationship stick. When only superficial things are shared, only superficial relationships evolve. Seeing the same curated persona in the same situations is like seeing the same picture of an apple over and over. It amounts to a single point of view with no depth, texture, or realism. Situational perspective, seeing someone in many different situations, is needed to drive true insight into the person you aim to know.
Situational perspective, seeing someone in many different situations, is needed to drive true insight into the person you aim to know.
Situational perspective allows you to see someone from many angles through different moments. It goes beyond and around the polished best-life images to expose the richly textured real-life underneath. Situational perspective is gained by seeing someone when they are happy, sad, angry, excited, tired, bored, and sick. Seeing how they act differently around old friends, co-workers, parents, and children. Seeing how they behave when they are traveling, lost, or nervous. Seeing them when they poop (*optional). You may very well enjoy the façade of someone, but without the benefit of multiple views, your appreciation will lack depth.
For a more realistic picture of a person to emerge you must see them not only in different lights, but also in shadow. Yes, those shadows we try hard to avoid but which reveal a person’s true depth. Conversely, each new experience brings a new vantage point and new embellishment. Situational perspective adds authenticity and depth which is the foundation of compatibility in relationships. If you want this, seek out those unique and challenging moments…wherever they may be.
FAMILY AND OTHER PEOPLE WHO DRIVE YOU CRAZY
Most people have a few relationships that started without consideration of compatibility. Chief among these is our family. Those we are born with offer us our first lessons in differences among people and, by extension, compromise. Other examples include our college roommates and, to some degree, classmates, workmates, and neighbors. In each of these situation we are far more likely to encounter and need to engage someone who has a different outlook than our own. The relationships that we do not select are an undervalued source of empathy and personality perspective in our lives. Personality perspective is that deep education and exposure to a broad and balanced spectrum of personality-types, opinions, preferences, and quirks. It reminds us how differently people can be, think and act. It hardens us against the negative effects of confirmation bias and echo-chamber circles toward which we gravitate, or are algorithmically pushed, later in life.
Personality perspective is that deep education and exposure to a broad and balanced spectrum of personality-types, opinions, preferences, and quirks.
I was born into a large family that was a master class of personalities. Together we covered many personality types, career fields, and temperaments. I also had the wonderful experience of serving on a few Coast Guard ships at sea. A triple-bunk-bed berthing area with six, 15, and 21 people is like a crash course in differences. Those without a large family or military service still have similar experiences to learn from. Embracing non-elected relationships at work, school, and home gives us an opportunity to engage someone we may otherwise not engage. These teach us tolerance, cooperation, conflict resolution, and bridge building which are all skills found in successful colleagues and citizens. In a society where choice and algorithms are limiting who we are exposed to, embracing these opportunities for relationships is a great way strengthen your personality perspective.
READING
Books, as a technology, shaped and changed how humans consume information. Before the printed word, lessons and legends alike had to be shared through oral tradition. Spoken and hand written word gave us the Bible, the Iliad, and much more, but it could not scale. We will also never know what stories and knowledge were not passed down. It was the printed word that preserved information in a way that retained accuracy and scaled in a way that built broad accessibility. With print, people could seek out answers and learn on their own terms and timeline. Despite other information technologies available today, books remain an important tool, possibly the most important tool, for learning and gaining perspective.
Books are one of the most accessible and trustworthy avenues for broadening our knowledge. Library systems are full of books spanning every topic, genre, and interest. Books allow you to choose high-level overviews on many topics or go deep into ones that interests you. They allow you to learn even when you’re recreating. Some of the best lessons and insights on the human condition are brilliantly packaged in enjoyable novels, fictions, and science fictions. Books even let you learn about topics you may not be comfortable discussing with people. These could be topics that are embarrassing to not know or simply controversial to research. These learning options only exist with books.
Books are an unparalleled path to knowledge in any topic and the literary perspective they provide is an asset in any field.
Books are also an efficient learning tool. Not only do books last a long time and require no battery or internet access, they are information rich. General Jim Mattis liked to emphasize that authors condense and edit years of research for our easy consumption. To put a finer point on it he would say for military leaders to learn any other way was reckless because it usually resulted in death. Not everyone possesses his clear-eyed urgency for learning, but his point is true beyond the military as well. Books are an unparalleled path to knowledge in any topic and the literary perspective they provide is an asset in any field.
TRAVEL
Everyone remembers a time at a friend's house or in another city where they needed to embrace something different. Maybe your friend’s family made their meals differently or the city’s grocery store had unfamiliar brands and languages. Large or small, these dissimilarities change something familiar to us and give us that first taste of differences that exist across cultures. Hidden behind that first experience is a world of differences that can continue to challenge what it familiar to us and help us grow.
Travel is a great way to gain and broaden cultural perspective. It exposes us to both new and discomforting things - from currency and languages to customs and cuisine. It frustrates us in the same way learning to ride a bike or do anything new does. The frustration is a byproduct of our learning and growing. Many of us know this feeling from navigating new places and seeing things for the first time as a tourists. Even those immersed more deeply into new places continue to encounter more subtle differences.
Different places and cultures also magnify the good and bad of our own cultures. They holds a mirror up to us while presenting novel alternatives. Consider how communities of Europe encourage walking and eating foods that are in season. Our ‘modern’ culture insulates us from these old ways but any seasoned traveller knows they are beautiful and efficient. Conversely, travel can make us appreciate things that we are fortunate enough to have - stand-up showers may feel luxurious after a long trip without them.
Cultural perspective is that learning gained by going beyond the familiar and embracing the dissimilar.
Cultural perspective is that learning gained by going beyond the familiar and embracing the dissimilar. Think of this the next time you travel and find yourself getting frustrated. Notice and appreciate the differences. Then go a step further, and seek them out.
TIME
Time is the most powerful force humans face and the one we cannot manipulate or otherwise overcome. It moves continents, erodes mountains and ultimately claims each of us. It makes sense that time influences our perspective too. As it goes by, time can alter how we see familiar thing again or it can reveal a thing previously unseen to us. The passage of time can also warp our perception of the time we have ahead, the time we have wasted, or time we have left. Time is a multiplier of all the other perspective tools we have described.
Temporal perspective is that sensation we feel when we revisit a person or place or when we reread a book again after a few years. The ‘old generals’ when you re-read Killer Angels are now your age. The apple tree looks dramatically different depending the time of year. Your childhood home now feels small. The person you see has a different mood or maturity than before. Time also constantly reveals new information to us. We learn from our experiences and our evolving mindset brings new things into focus. It may tell us if the relationship or job or decision was the right one or if there was a right one at all. No matter what, time will change and enhance our perspective on nearly everything.
Temporal perspective is that sensation we feel when we revisit a person or place or when we reread a book again after a few years.
Time itself can even alter our appreciation of time itself. One year as a child seems significantly longer than one year as an adult. Conversely, the adult knows how fast four years will pass compared to the youth about to embark on high school or college. As our time winds down, our memories gain and lose luster while our own perspective gains clarity. In the final days and hours, highlights and regrets become prominent and our memories stretch-out to infinity until that final moment when the body gives up and the mind soon follows.
Time continues to give us chances to gain perspective whether it is from an apple, a situation, a book, or a person until eventually it runs out and that opportunity is lost.
Full, well-rounded, circle
These observations are merely my perspective on perspective, but even they reveal how much more empathy and insight can be gained with a little work, a little movement, and some practiced observation. Imagine how many more perspectives you and others may add to this list and how all these additional perspective cues can round out our understanding of the work around us.
Without even going that far, start by considering or revisiting a simple apple. Sit in an orchard and describe the nuance and complexity the fruit entails. Sketch its fullness, its color, and its surrounding. Share and convey your learning with someone. Consider the apple again over time and consider what time in-turn will do to it. Then repeat as needed with different subjects.
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P.S. - alternative title was "In the land of perspective, the lazy-eyed man is king"