What an amazing and stunning beautiful natural spring this is: the Grand Prismatic Spring in Yellowstone National Park. From a distance it is a multi-colored wonder of water that took my breath away. What a pleasing sight for my eyes!
When I got closer, it suddenly looked like a steaming, hot, bubbling mystery. Monday was my first time seeing it, and I thought how our behavior is like this incredible miracle of nature.
In the workplace (and in relationships too), we too often present a pleasing exterior. It happens when we disagree with someone like our boss or a coworker and don’t speak up. Or when we pretend what someone said or did doesn’t bother us. Or when we don’t like another person but don’t know why. Or things are going my way, so I don’t want anything to disrupt my world. Like the Grand Prismatic Spring, there is so much more going on beneath the surface. And when our pleasing exterior is incongruent with what is actually going on inside of us, we end up with confusion, broken communication, and problems within work teams.
What can be done to fix this? Just like with the Grand Prismatic Spring, if we only seek the one seemingly perfect perspective (usually ours), we miss out on the deeper understanding gained from multiple perspectives. To help you see gain more perspective, use this list of questions.
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- Why do I feel/think the way I do?
- What do I know that is factual? Opinion?
- Could my perspective be limited?
- What questions do I need to ask that I haven’t already?
- Who do I know that could provide another perspective?
- What don’t I know that could be impacting this?
- What if I am wrong?
- What is the worst thing that will happen if I speak up?
- Why do I think presenting a pleasing exterior is the best thing to do?
- Is what I’m doing getting us where we need to be?
If you have another question you would ask, please leave a comment.
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