If You Are Stuck, Change Perspectives.

Everyone knows those pictures. The ones where some people see a young woman and others see an old one. Where one person sees a duck and another sees a rabbit. We look at the same image and see something completely different.

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We find it fascinating. But in our business lives, we tend to take our own reality as the only true one, and act from that place.

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Until we get stuck.

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Miss R. was a patient I cared for during my years as a nurse in a gerontopsychiatric ward. A wonderful woman suffering from severe Alzheimer’s. She sat at the table and would not eat. Repeatedly. It was becoming more harmful by the day, and me and my colleagues felt increasingly helpless.

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We were stuck.

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Until one day, I sat down with her and engaged her in a conversation. I tried to see the situation through her eyes.

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And then I understood.

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She thought she was in a restaurant. And she had no money on her. Naturally, she would not eat.

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The fix was simple. I told her she was at an all-inclusive resort and that everything had already been paid for. She happily started eating.

(If you wonder why I did not tell her the truth — if you know, you know.)

My colleagues and I repeated this ritual every day. It almost always worked.

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Do you have a report who does not seem motivated despite having the conversation with them over and over again?

Do you have a peer who frustrates you with the same issue every single day?

Do you have a negotiation that has stalled for weeks?

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Before you have the conversation one more time, stop.

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Try listening. Change perspective and act from there. It might not be as easy as an all-inclusive resort. But it might as well be.