Perspective Taking- “What you see, depends not on what you look at, but also on, where you look from”

It was Parent Teachers Meeting day and I was tense since the morning. Though my son was in Third grade, still every PTM gave me goosebumps. I think as a parent you don’t want to hear anything negative about your child. Deep in your heart, you know his weaknesses, but you believe in your upbringing and hope things are far better off in school as compared to home. With this belief, I too went to meet my son’s teacher confidently. We discussed many things about him, and, in the end, she became serious and told me her biggest concern. She had all my attention and I wanted to know what’s that one thing was bothering her so much. Finally, the words came from her mouth like a foreign language to me. It went over my head, and I wondered about the enormous expectation from a Third grader. She told me that he didn’t understand the relevance of Perspective Taking and she was having a hard time explaining to him the concept. For a moment, I froze as for me too it was too deep a subject to understand. In my head, I questioned myself did I understand perspective-taking, or did any adults around? We pretend to understand others’ emotions and feelings or what they go through but honestly as an adult can we put ourselves into someone else’s shoes and realize even 1% of what they go through or what exists in their mind? Moreover, do we even want to? It is quite easy to say in a conversation with anyone that I understand you, but I doubt we hardly understand their situations and views unless we carry the same values or experiences. We as an adult are good at playing with words and pretending. I wasn’t sure what that Teacher was worried about? Was she trying to tell, me my son hadn’t learned that art of pretense and faking to others yet? Well, could be, yes.

I was surprised to hear the concern as many of us don’t even know what perspective-taking is. Wasn’t it too much to expect a 3rd grader to grasp this subject? When we say, I understand what you are going through or what you had been or how hard or easy it is for you; are we accurate enough to judge those feelings or emotions of other people? When we see or hear a person, we form an opinion about them, and our understanding of them also follows from there. The information you can gain from listening to someone once or twice isn’t enough to understand their perspective. You need to spend some time with that person to see what he or she is trying to convey or achieve. To see the world from a different view requires open-mindedness and trusting others’ points of view.

What is perspective-taking? As per the definition of Wikipedia, Perspective-taking is the act of perceiving a situation or understanding a concept from an alternative point of view, such as that of another individual. Research and studies suggest that perspective-taking is crucial to human development and that it may lead to a variety of beneficial outcomes.

Let me share another incident, which further clarifies my viewpoint on Perspective taking. I joined the new company as a Manager in an IT department of a product company. I came from a rich consulting background and my thought process and approach has always been quite driven, aggressive, and get-it-done types. But my role in that company was to manage a vendor to deliver the IT work for us. My role was reversed but I always considered that as a strength to manage the vendor well. I could get the work done efficiently and on time because of my experience as a consultant before. The decisions I made in the organizations and how I conducted meetings were influenced by my past experiences. I was quite motivated and upbeat but here came the twist. I started getting criticism about my management and leadership style from one of the influential Managers. He felt I was being biased toward my vendor and supporting their approach always. We had a candid conversation and I tried explaining my opinion. But I found him unreceptive and closed-minded. The vendor we selected to deliver the work undoubtedly was one of the best in the industry. Moreover, I agreed with their recommendations because they aligned with my thinking about meeting project goals. I am a Technical competent Program Manager. I was confident in my decisions and opinions however I’m always open to listening to others as well. My colleague had never done this magnitude of the project despite he was not flexible enough to accept my “different” opinion. He wasn’t getting my perspective and eventually started feeding the wrong information about me to my boss and a few others as well. This created a misunderstanding between me and them including my Boss. We both were working towards the same objective but the way we saw things and understood them were so different. Our approach and style could be different, but we wanted the same results. Being new, I had little insight into this company’s culture and mindset. But I seriously started getting the feeling that, people around me including my boss are not open to alternative suggestions. They couldn’t see my efforts to make that program a success. They didn’t spend enough time with me to get my perspective or to understand my “Why”. I was working hard as it was my first big project in that company. I wanted to make it a success and at the same time, I wanted to prove my capabilities too. But slowly I developed the feeling that it was immaterial to the people around me. They have a system, and they want me to adopt that system irrespective of what my views were. It was becoming difficult for me to adjust to that culture. I think we both struggled to understand each other views on managing various tasks. It started impacting my thinking and motivation too. Rather than trusting or understanding my actions, decisions, and insight, they were doubting my abilities. They believed that what they know is the only right way of doing things. Did anyone try to understand or perceive what I was trying to do? Nope! But this is the reality. To a third grader, we are trying to teach “Perspective Taking” but as adults, we cannot tolerate different opinions and suggestions. “It’s my way or the highway”. We might tell lie on our faces as a listener that “I understand you” but honestly, we don’t. I understand it could be difficult for my colleague to get into my shoes to see things from a different lens but was he ready to give it a try. To try he needs to consider the same worthwhile first.

The point I’m trying to make is that perspective-taking is quite difficult and at times impossible to accomplish. It is not an easy task to put yourself in others’ shoes and start thinking like them. Every individual is different, possess different values, and comes from a different background. It is impossible to think alike in any given situation. Then why pursue such a road of failure? Instead, we need to approach this little differently.

Instead of focusing on perspective-taking, we should teach kids and everyone a variety of ways to solve a problem. The focus should be on multiple approaches to solving the same problem rather than on understanding the individual’s ideology. Most importantly, they need to develop trust toward different solutions and viewpoints. There is no one right answer or approach or method. This behavior and tolerance towards different approaches need to be taught since childhood. Trust is the underlying foundation of perspective-taking. Instead of worrying about how to teach you to get into other shoes, teach the kids to trust and be open to different suggestions. If they get this, they will learn perspective-taking on their own.