Many thanks to the crew who came to the Talking About session tonight. I think we all had some good things to say about "How to See Others' Perspective" and some good examples as well. I know that I learned two things from you all: 1. How we treat people is very important, and we should always have the goal of treating people like people, not like "idiots"; and 2. Sometimes we have the "right" answer but others may also be right from a different perspective or in certain circumstances, so we should listen and discern what is important and what isn't for the problem at hand.  Seeing others' perspectives is an important adult skill. 

Also remember, there is nothing wrong with constructive disagreement. The idea of the 10th Man as explained in the World War Z movie was something that has always stuck with me. We actually used the concept in a way in the Military Decision Making Process as well. We would come up with different courses of action based on different contingencies. And then we'd wargame them to see what we had to do to make them work. All kinds of goals, actions, resources, and decision points later, we narrowed the different courses of action down to one, and that became the plan. We argued with each other about everything until we made a decision on the plan, and then we got behind the plan full-tilt. Because every plan will need to change almost immediately after you begin executing it, we knew that every person was going to work to make the plan work even through obstacles.

But the most important thing is that we were able to see the obstacles because we put ourselves in the enemy's shoes. In business, we do the same thing, except we are looking for clients - where they hang out, how much money they make, where they spend their money, what they care about, where they live, who they live with, what do they do for fun, etc.  -- and that's how we create more effective marketing!   

Seeing other people's perspectives is a vital adult skill. 