I was at a training course last year where they asked one of the participants to tell the story of Little Red Riding hood from the perspective of the wolf. The person who told it did a fantastic job – it was a story of wrong doings (it wasn’t the wolf’s fault, it was the bad red riding hood who tricked him!) and malicious females. We laughed a lot and thoroughly enjoyed the story.
But at the heart of that was a really great revelation. How often do you look at a story from a different perspective?
When you look at your business – do you only ever see it through your own eyes? How would your business look like through someone else’s eyes? Sometimes we are so busy being in the moment, in the business and just trying to get ahead and “do what needs to be done” that we only have time to look at a problem with our own eyes. But imagine what kind of different and creative solutions could surface by looking at an area of your business from a different perspective.
So why don’t you decide on an area of your business you would like to improve and then take the time to sit down for 30 minutes and look at the problem through a number of sets of eyes.
- What would a supplier do to improve the current situation?
- A customer?
- Your bank manager?
- Your family, husband/wife?
- A staff member?
- Sir Richard Branson?
Write down what you think the solutions those various people would come up with. Then look through all the various solutions and see which ones you think would make the greatest difference and try it out.
Try being that wolf for a day.