Regaining Perspective: Who Are You?

Who are you?

Who, who, who, who?

Who are you?

Who, who, who, who?

Who are you?

Who, who, who, who?

Who are you?

Who, who, who, who?

I really wanna know

(Who are you? Who, who, who, who?)

I really wanna know

(Who are you? Who, who, who, who?)

Come on, tell me, who are you?

- The Who

 

Photo by mostafa meraji on Unsplash

 

 

 

 

 

You really do know who you are, and so you could have answered this question that The Who asked so many years ago, right?

 

 

 

 

Is there a reason, then, that it can be so difficult to remember who you are, and what is most important about you, when you in moments of extreme duress? When you are in these situations you can lose perspective, and what happens next can be just that primitive portion of yourself reacting to a fight or flight situation, and the results of this reaction are usually not good for anyone.

 

When You Feel Under Attack: Respond Don’t React

A few weeks ago I was in a large client project meeting when a client executive decided to proceed with her usual approach of going on the attack, due to her lack of happiness with a project’s status. I do think that this executive honestly believes when she does this sort of thing that she is adding value; and, the reality is, however misguided this behavior may seem to you, there are many (so called) leaders who have a similar style and belief system.

In the process of responding to this executive’s actions, I first felt my instinctive reaction rising within me, but instead of invoking that reaction, which would not have been helpful, I responded and put the ball dispassionately back in the executive’s court by calmly communicating: (1) here is why we did what we did; (2) if you disagree with the current status, we are more than happy to reflect this status in a way that you feel comfortable with. This diffused the attack relatively quickly.

I think the above scenario is fairly common and is worth spending a bit more time dissecting. What stands out here to me is:

  1. I had to first become aware of my inclination to react during this scenario, in order to prevent that reaction.
  2. I had to realize that I could not win any kind of counter attack directed at this individual. People like this turn out to be rather cowardly, and will only go on the attack when it would be difficult to respond, or when a counter attack would be seen as an unacceptable challenge to their authority.
  3. I had to remember that this specific issue didn’t define who I am or my self worth. This is an important point, because if you define someone’s view of a deliverable as part of you — and for those of us who are focused on quality work this is quite easy to do — there is no way to respond to this situation without a defensive posture.
  4. I had to take a few seconds to locate myself in space and time, and realize this one moment of hell was just not all that important. This is perhaps the most difficult part of all, but regaining a sense of perspective in these moments, is the key to surviving without just picking up your stuff and walking out the door.

 

Pulling Focus

So how does this work, this perspective thing, where, as mentioned above, we are able to remind ourselves in the moment that we are not defined by what is currently happening? I call this Pulling Focus, and I use a visual model for it, where I think of a movie scene that is tightly focused on some drama going on with a few of the characters in the movie’s story, and then, after that moment, the camera pulls out of that highly focused scene, and we are now above it, seeing the trees and hills. The focused scene has now been brought into the context of the movie’s setting and seems less important, overall.

Pulling Focus in our own work experiences can give us this same perspective. As soon as we allow ourselves — for even just a few seconds — to remember that the current drama we are facing does not define the universe of our existence, we find that have moved ourselves to a much better mind set where we are poised to respond, instead of react.

Pulling Focus is not always an easy thing to do, but it is an essential tool in stressful work situations.

 

Finding Your Work

So, yes, it is definitely worth finding ways to respond (not react) to difficult situations, and it sure helps to be able to maintain an overall perspective on the importance of events; but is that all we can do to be true to ourselves in work?

No. You need to find your work.

You can navigate through difficult situations all day long, but this is not a path to work that is full of joy and fulfillment. If you want that kind of work, you need work that seems to be built for your purpose.

How do you find this work? There are just two things you need to do:

  1. Realize who you really are….Not some fantasy of who you want to be, but a true picture of yourself, and then discover what Jim Collins calls your “Hedgehog Concept,” as he explains in Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0 by doing work:
  • “You’re deeply passionate about”
  • That you ideally can “be the best in the world at,” or at least work that comes naturally to you
  • That “Drives your economic engine.” This doesn’t mean that you’ll make a fortune doing this work (although you've increased the likelihood of this, since you already know you’re deeply passionate about it), but the economic imperatives in your life will be served by this work
  1. Find a situation where you can work with effective leaders who have no interest in attacks or similar destructive or manipulative maneuvers, but who simply recognize the tremendous value you bring to your work and want to help you be the most effective you can be.

 

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