Tag Archives: vuja de

Perspective Shifting: How to See Every Challenge Through Fresh Eyes

Posted on by

In a world increasingly divided by rigid viewpoints and echo chambers, the ability to shift perspectives has become one of the most valuable skills a person can develop. Far from being wishy-washy or indecisive, perspective shifting represents a sophisticated form of mental agility that can transform how we navigate challenges, resolve conflicts, and lead others effectively.

Today’s article is the ninth of a 12-part exploration of the Modern Elder’s core competencies distilled from my 40+ year career journey. Perspective Shifting is the capacity to reframe challenges through multiple lenses based on diverse life experiences. The secret to thriving in life’s transitions is embracing the beginner’s mindset – starting fresh may seem counterintuitive, but novelty creates vivid memories and slows our perception of time, while flow states offer psychological pauses in aging. Curiosity becomes your compass, functioning like hunger to fuel dopamine-driven learning, especially “connective curiosity” that deepens relationships through genuine interest in others’ experiences. To stay curious, practice “vujá dé” – the opposite of déjà vu – by viewing familiar situations with fresh eyes and discovering extraordinary insights in ordinary moments through careful observation and openness to new perspectives.

The Foundation: How Diverse Life Experiences Create Unique Viewpoints

Every person carries a unique lens shaped by their accumulated experiences, cultural background, education, and personal struggles. A software engineer who grew up in rural poverty will approach problem-solving differently than one raised in suburban comfort. A parent managing work-life balance sees time constraints through different eyes than a single professional. A person who has overcome significant health challenges often develops a perspective on resilience that others may struggle to comprehend.

These diverse backgrounds aren’t just interesting biographical details – they’re the raw material for innovative solutions. When we recognize that each person’s viewpoint is both limited and valuable, we begin to understand perspective shifting not as abandoning our beliefs, but as temporarily borrowing someone else’s mental framework to expand our understanding.

The most effective leaders and problem-solvers are often those who have lived multiple lives: the executive who started in the mailroom, the doctor who was once a patient, the teacher who struggled as a student. They’ve developed what might be called “perspective fluency” – the ability to move fluidly between different ways of seeing the world.

Techniques for Seeing Challenges Through Multiple Frames

Perspective shifting begins with deliberate practice. One powerful technique is the “stakeholder walk-around,” where you systematically consider how each person affected by a situation might view it. When facing a budget cut, for instance, walk through the perspective of employees, customers, shareholders, and community members. What fears, hopes, and priorities would each group bring to the table?

Another effective method is temporal perspective shifting – viewing challenges through the lens of different time horizons. How would you see this problem if you only had one day to solve it versus one year? What would matter most if you were looking back on this situation five years from now? This technique often reveals that what feels urgent may not be truly important, and vice versa.

The “worst-case scenario” exercise can also unlock new perspectives. Instead of avoiding negative outcomes, deliberately explore them. What would happen if this project failed completely? What opportunities might emerge from apparent setbacks? This isn’t pessimism – it’s strategic thinking that prepares you for multiple futures.

Role reversal offers another powerful tool. If you’re a manager dealing with employee complaints, spend time genuinely imagining yourself in their position. What would your daily experience feel like? What information would you have access to, and what would remain hidden? This technique often reveals communication gaps and systemic issues that aren’t visible from the top.

Using Perspective Shifting in Conflict Resolution

When conflicts arise, most people become more entrenched in their positions. Perspective shifting offers a different path. Instead of fighting to prove your point, you become genuinely curious about understanding the other person’s viewpoint. This doesn’t mean agreeing with them – it means developing enough empathy to see how a reasonable person could hold their position.

In practice, this might sound like: “Help me understand what this situation looks like from your side” or “What am I missing about your experience that would help me see this differently?” These questions signal that you’re genuinely interested in understanding, not just waiting for your turn to speak.

Effective mediators often use perspective mirroring, where they reflect back each party’s viewpoint in a way that the other side can understand. They might say, “Sarah, it sounds like from your perspective, this deadline feels arbitrary and you’re worried about quality. Mike, you’re seeing this as a critical business commitment that affects client relationships. Both of you care about doing good work – you’re just weighing different risks.”

Teaching Perspective Skills to Teams

Building perspective-shifting capabilities across a team requires intentional cultivation. Start by creating psychological safety where people feel comfortable sharing their viewpoints without judgment. Regular “perspective rounds” in meetings, where team members briefly share how they see a situation, can normalize this practice.

Encourage devil’s advocate thinking by rotating who plays this role. When someone presents an idea, assign another team member to genuinely explore potential weaknesses or alternative approaches. Make this a constructive exercise focused on strengthening ideas rather than attacking them.

Cross-functional collaboration naturally builds perspective skills. When engineers work directly with customer service representatives, or when marketing teams spend time with product developers, they begin to understand different professional worldviews. Create structured opportunities for these interactions.

Story sharing sessions can also build empathy and perspective awareness. When team members share stories about their backgrounds, challenges they’ve overcome, or different cultural experiences, they build a reservoir of diverse perspectives to draw from when solving problems.

When to Hold Firm Versus Shift Perspective

Perspective shifting isn’t about becoming a chameleon who changes colors to match their surroundings. There are times when holding firm on your values and convictions is not only appropriate but necessary. The key is understanding the difference between core principles and preferred approaches.

Core values – like integrity, respect for human dignity, or commitment to quality – typically shouldn’t shift based on perspective. These represent your fundamental beliefs about right and wrong. However, your strategies for implementing these values might change dramatically based on new perspectives.

Hold firm when dealing with ethical violations, safety issues, or situations where compromise would violate your fundamental values. Be willing to shift perspective when exploring different approaches to shared goals, understanding why good people disagree, or finding creative solutions to complex problems.

The superpower of perspective shifting lies not in abandoning your viewpoint, but in developing the confidence and skill to temporarily step outside it. When you can see the world through multiple lenses while maintaining your core integrity, you become a more effective leader, collaborator, and problem-solver. In our complex, interconnected world, this ability to bridge different viewpoints may be one of the most crucial skills for creating positive change.

How to See the Spectacle of the Ordinary

Posted on by

Recently my wife and I had the great privilege to host the 2023 version of Nina and GrandBob’s Summer Camp – that time when we are able to host our grandchildren at our house or keep grandkids at their parent’s house for an extended time.

For a period of two weeks, we had an amazing time with our nine grandchildren, in two groups as noted in the image above. We laughed, ate ice cream, played games, took walks, and much more. We’re already looking ahead to repeating the camps in 2024!

In reflecting back on those two weeks, I was reminded of the first time we attempted such a thing. It wasn’t hosting our grandkids, their parents were with us, and it wasn’t at our house. But it remains a powerful lesson years later.

A few years ago, my wife and I had the wonderful opportunity to plan and deliver The Adams Family Adventure – a week-long trip to Walt Disney World for our immediate family of fifteen at the time: six children and nine adults.

All week long I had the most fun watching the rest of the family as they experienced Walt Disney World, most for the first time. We captured that trip in over 3,000 images, to bring up stories in the future from our memory from those images.

As we departed from four different cities on the first day of our trip, we were texting and FaceTiming about our various experiences. It was the first airplane flight for four of the grandchildren (they did great). They left their homes early in the morning, took long flights, got on a big “magical” bus, and arrived at our resort.

To our grandchildren, it must have been a little strange. From the time they came running off the bus, throughout all of the fun adventures of the week, to the goodbyes at the end of the week, they were a little overwhelmed, maybe even overstimulated about the whole process – and I began to see all over again what it means to be curious.

You can, and must, regain your lost curiosity. Learn to see again with eyes undimmed by precedent.   – Gary Hamel

My grandchildren’s curiosity was brought sharply into focus when I recently read the following:

In childhood, then, attention is brightened by two features: children’s neophilia (love of new things) and the fact that, as young people, they simply haven’t seen it all before.   – Alexandra Horowitz

Alexandra Horowitz’s brilliant On Looking: Eleven Walks with Expert Eyes shows us how to see the spectacle of the ordinary – to practice, as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle puts it, “the observation of trifles.”

On Looking is structured around a series of eleven walks the author takes, mostly in her Manhattan neighborhood, with experts on a diverse range of subjects, including an urban sociologist, a geologist, a physician, and a sound designer. She also walks with a child and a dog to see the world as they perceive it. What they see, how they see it, and why most of us do not see the same things reveal the startling power of human attention and the cognitive aspects of what it means to be an expert observer.

Here’s an illustrative example as Horowitz walks around the block with a naturalist who informs her she has missed seeing three different groups of birds in the last few minutes of their walk:

How had I missed these birds? It had to do with how I was looking. Part of what restricts us seeing things is that we have an expectation about what we will see, and we are actually perceptually restricted by that perception. In a sense, perception is a lost cousin of attention: both serve to reduce what we need to process of the world “out there.” Attention is the more charismatic member, packaged and sold more effectively, but expectation is also a crucial part of what we see. Together they allow us to be functional, reducing the sensory chaos of the world into unbothersome and understandable units.

Attention and expectation also work together to oblige our missing things right in front of our noses. There is a term for this: inattentional blindness. It is the missing of the literal elephant in the room, despite the overturned armchairs and plate-sized footprints. 

Horowitz’s On Looking should be required reading for those wanting to become modern elders. How often do we fly past the fascinating world around us? A world, mind you, that we have been called to serve.

How can we serve others if we aren’t paying attention to the world around us?

To a surprising extent, time spent going to and fro – walking down the street, traveling to work, heading to the store or a child’s school – is unremembered. It is forgotten not because nothing of interest happens. It is forgotten because we failed to pay attention to the journey to begin with.

On Looking, Alexandra Horowitz

The consulting firm I work for uses a thought process called “The Kingdom Concept,” with references to artist Andrew Wyeth:

 Most artists look for something fresh to paint; frankly, I find that quite boring. For me it is much more exciting to find fresh meaning in something familiar.   – Andrew Wyeth

This reminds me of the concept of vujá dé.

No, that’s not a misspelling – it really is vujá dé – Vujá Dé implies seeing everything as if for the first time or better still, seeing everything everyone else sees, but understanding it differently. (Simon T. Bailey)

You might even say the journey to being a modern elder starts with paying attention – with a healthy dose of vujá dé.

Questions to Ponder

  • How do you observe the all-too-familiar in order to discover new meaning and discern the activity of God that others miss?
  • What do you look for?
  • How can you learn to scrutinize the obvious?
  • What does it mean to look for the extraordinary in the ordinary?

A good place to start is paying attention…

How to Lead with Vujá Dé

Posted on by

We are living in an age of disruption. According to Fast Company co-founder William C. Taylor, you can’t do big things anymore if you are content with doing things a little better than everyone else, or a little differently from how you’ve done them in the past. The most effective leaders don’t just rally their teams to outrace the “competition” or outpace prior results. They strive to redefine the terms of competition by embracing one-of-a-kind ideas in a world filled with copy-cat thinking. 

What sets truly innovative organizations apart often comes down to one simple question: What can we see that others cannot?

If you believe that what you see shapes how you change, then the question for change-minded leaders in times of disruption becomes: How do you look at your organization as if you are seeing it for the first time?

The question is not what you look at, but what you see. 

– Henry David Thoreau

When you learn to see with fresh eyes, you’re able to differentiate your organization from the competition (and your “competition” isn’t the church down the street). You’re able to change the way your organization sees all the different types of environments around it, and the way your others see your organization.

This mentality is the ability to keep shifting opinion and perception. We live in a world that is less black and white and more shades of gray world, not a black and while one. Seeing in this way means shifting your focus from objects or patterns that are in the foreground to those in the background. It means thinking of things that are usually assumed to be negative as positive, and vice versa. It can mean reversing assumptions about cause and effect, or what matters most versus least.

In a season filled with uncertainty, how can you cultivate a sense of confidence about what lies ahead?

SOLUTION #1: Seeing with Vujá Dé

THE QUICK SUMMARY

The Vujá Dé Moment is the reverse of the French saying – Déjà vu which means “already seen it.” Compelling thought catalyst, Simon T. Bailey defines The Vuja’ De’ Moment by saying “you’ve never seen it” but you intend to flip the status quo and create it. 

The Vuja’ dD’ Moment – Shift from Average to Brilliant, is a call to action that invites readers to shift their thinking, creating a disruption from the norm that ignites innovation, increasing accountability and profitability in life and business. 

The ultimate “GameChanger,” the Vujá Dé Moment equips you to shift from average to brilliant, guiding you to personal and professional success. By harnessing the power of Vuja’ De’ and regaining control of your inner steering wheel, you put yourself in gear and move forward. The book outlines substantive “how to” steps on how to ignite a fresh vision and turn a moment into a movement.

A SIMPLE SOLUTION

In so much uncertainty, how can you feel a sense of confidence about what lies ahead?

According to author Simon T. Bailey, it’s working towards Vujá Dé moments, moments that are about the future. It is about envisioning and believing in the possibilities – believing in the future so strongly that those possibilities become probable.

Vujá Dé is seeing – and living – your future as if it’s happening now.

Vujá Dé is a twist on conventional wisdom.

Vujá Dé implies seeing everything as if for the first time or better still, seeing everything everyone else sees, but understanding it differently.

Simon T. Bailey

There are ways to instill Vujá Dé in your life. Start by looking for the uncommon in the common, for the meaning behind the actions and the words, for the new in the old.

Vujá Dé is all about shifting. It’s when you have confirmation in your gut about making important changes without having to have external validation. It’s the ability to see and believe in your own potential and the potential of the team around you. Vujá dé is realizing there will come a time when you will have to break with the old to embrace the new, to let go of what is comfortable and convenient in order to grow and expand.

It’s about moving in a new direction without a map, GPS, or support from your Facebook friends. It’s doing the exact opposite of what you’ve always done in order to ignite a creative spark of new possibility. Because it’s a promise of greater things ahead. Vujá dé is the moment when everything clicks and you decide to resist the gravitational pull that keeps you from being brilliant.

Vujá Dé is the big idea. It’s the breakthrough. It’s the disruption from your normal routine. If you intend to live brilliantly, then disruption is your future. In fact, look at your calendar: disruption is your next appointment.

Simon T. Bailey, The Vujá Dé Moment! Shift from Average to Brilliant

A NEXT STEP

According to author Simon T. Bailey, the reality is everything around us – and everything we once knew – has shifted.

Bailey developed these questions to help you begin to see with Vujá Dé:

  • What could a personal shift do for you?
  • Are you holding on to what worked yesterday?
  • Are you suppressing your inner voice that is telling you to step out of your comfort zone?
  • What mysterious voice or vision are you ignoring?
  • Can you immerse yourself or your work in your relationships in a more significant way?

He sees Vujá Dé as the catalyst to your future and developed SHIFTER as a tool to get you there. Follow these seven actions, then schedule the personal retreat described below to get moving:

See differently

What does it mean to see differently? It means to change your mindset. When you begin to see things differently, the opportunities before you change. To shift, you must be willing to examine everything you do and ask yourself if you are creating the tomorrow you want. Even as you are reading this, stop and record as much of your day as you can. Shoot for blocks of at least 30 minutes and then capture the rest of your day.

Harness the power of You, Inc.

Draw confidence from your personal gifts and talents by doing a quarterly assessment of your career/business portfolio. Examine your personal productivity, relationship currency, and skills inventory. What do you do well, or have you been gifted with? Make a list of how this impacts how you see your organization. 

Ignite a fresh vision

Challenge yourself to try new ways of doing routine things. Challenge your team to live a fresh vision in their hearts and minds. If your vision is to stand the test of time, it will do so because each individual feels a significant sense of ownership. Collaborate together on a theme for the next three months of your work. Leverage the gifts and talents of each member to express that theme in unique and creative ways around the office. 

Fuel your mind

Take responsibility for your own growth and development and for the unleashing of your potential. Keep your intellectual tank full by committing to become a lifelong learner. Identify three books from three different genres that will challenge your growth – one biography, one marketplace leadership book, and one work of classic fiction.

Take the wheel

To change what’s outside, look inside to see who’s at the wheel. You hold the keys to your destiny. Instead of letting tomorrow come to you, go get it. Own your future – don’t let fear of failure and the changes that are happening at full speed around you keep you in neutral. In what area can you model faith-full obedience to God’s calling? What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail?

Engage your gears

Sometimes, when we attempt to shift, we can either grind a gear or slip out of gear. Consider what will give you the energy and the discipline to get in gear and stay in gear. Make a list of what most motivates you to do great work. How can you use these things to encourage and focus your work?

Restart your engine

There are seasons in our lives which require us to restart our own internal batteries or restart our engines. If you are in a situation you can’t change, what you can change is how you choose to view it. Use your retreat time as a time of intense Bible study and prayer. Consider making fasting a part of this season of listening to the Lord.

Before moving on, which of the above seven actions are most needed in your life and ministry right now? Calendar a 3-4 hour personal retreat in the next 14 days to work on only one of the above actions. In that retreat, journal what God reveals through times of prayer and Bible study. Ask the questions from author Simon Bailey above and make a plan to enact what you are now seeing.

Part of a regular series on 27gen, entitled Wednesday Weekly Reader

During my elementary school years one of the things I looked forward to the most was the delivery of “My Weekly Reader,” a weekly educational magazine designed for children and containing news-based, current events.

It became a regular part of my love for reading, and helped develop my curiosity about the world around us.

Along with early and ongoing encouragement from my parents – especially my father – reading was established as a passion in my life that I was happy to continually learn from, share with my children, and watch them share with their children.

It’s Highly Possible that You’ve Already Had Your Next Best Idea

Posted on by

Most of us attach the word “audit” to “IRS” and the word association isn’t pleasant.

The general definition of an audit is an evaluation of a person, organization, system, process, enterprise, project or product.

The term most commonly refers to audits in accounting, internal auditing, and government auditing, but similar concepts also exist in project management, quality management, water management, and energy conservation. (from Wikipedia)

Debra Kaye, writing in Red Thread Thinking, wants to give new meaning to the word audit by attaching it to your ideas instead of your tax returns.

There’s plenty of information, products, materials, and technology that can be looked at in a fresh way, modified somehow, and used again.

We’ve all experienced deja vu – looking at an unfamiliar situation and feeling – almost knowing – that you’ve seen it before.

It’s time to flip that phrase.

William Taylor, cofounder of Fast Company magazine and author of Practically Radical, writes that it’s time for the best leaders to demonstrate a capacity for vuja de’. It’s looking at a familiar situation (say, being a leader in ChurchWorld for decades, or designing and delivering a weekly worship experience for years) as if you’ve never seen it before, and with that fresh line of sight, developing a distinctive point of view on the future.

You can’t do big things anymore if you are content with doing things a little better than everyone else, or a little differently from how you’ve done them in the past.

It’s time to look at your organization and your calling as if you are seeing them for the first time.

We all have ideas that never went anywhere. It’s time to unearth old notes from previous development projects. Are there innovations or ventures that you started to work on and then abandoned for some reason?

It’s time for an “idea audit” to see what’s in the back of your hard drive, filing cabinet or closet. When you reassess what’s already there you can uncover what’s worth revisiting.

What should you be looking for in an idea audit? Most organizations and innovators have or can find hidden assets in their past ideas and efforts, including:

  • Existing old technologies that have accessible benefits that can be enhanced and revealed to new constituents
  • Underleveraged technologies or products that could be valued in categories that were not previously considered or by new or niche groups of consumers
  • Unreleased products or too quickly discarded product concepts that could be potential winners, but that went astray because the going-in insight or platform wasn’t properly tweaked
  • Undervalued distribution networks that can be reawakened with partners who want to be where you are
  • Consumer perceptions and sluggish brand equity that can be refreshed to awaken new revenue

In short, open your eyes fresh and look anew.

Look at your resources – every false start, tool, prototype, note, gadget, materials, formula, recipe, or report available – from a different perspective.

Maybe it’s even time for a little Vuja De’.

Most artists look for something fresh to paint; frankly I find that quite boring. For me it is much more exciting to find fresh meaning in something familiar. – Andrew Wyeth

inspired by:

 Red Thread Thinking, by Debra Kaye with Karen Kelly

Practically Radical, by William C. Taylor