If we are to understand an organization, we must ask certain questions first, right?
What are your job descriptions? What is your employee retention rate? Do you offer benefits? Are you profitable? What is your mission?
These and so many other questions are most definitely important, but does it make sense to jump right into an analysis of an organization before, in fact, we take a step back?
We are talking about perspective, which we define here for our purposes as the ability to see something in its largest context.
What are you as an organization now? Where were you before? Where are you going? Is it working well? Are there problems and/or challenges you would like to overcome? What connects all staff with one another? What might be driving them apart?
This line of questioning entails that we observe as well as reflect on what we see and hear before we jump into the kinds of questions that have binary sets of answers. If A, then B. If not B, then A. It is more complicated than that, of course, but answers to questions like, “Do you have benefits?” are easily answerable.
To gain perspective, we need to go into the gray areas of an organization in order to uncover clues to the ‘how’ and/or ‘why.’
Perspective of an organization does not begin or end within its proverbial walls. Rather, we must also consider the actual lives of the people who work there.
Are they motivated? Is this their first job? Their last? Are they parents? Grandparents?
The roles we play outside the office has a direct bearing on how we conduct our behavior within it. Whether our staff work within an actual office or virtually, organizations operate by unwritten rules of behavior.
“This is the way the handbook says things work, but this is how it really works,” an incoming new hire might hear from a well-intentioned supervisor. Is this something we really want to hear?
Perspective is the ability to see things from many angles. It seems like an art, but it is a science, one grounded in philosophic inquiry.
If we spend actual time each day thinking about the ‘how’ and the ‘why,’ there is a better chance we will gain insight not just into a business operation, but our very selves.
Ever work for a boss who was unable to offer you perspective? There may be nothing more uncomfortable in work, or personal, life for that matter than individuals unable to contextualize to any degree the behaviors around them…
