Back with new perspective

Perspective is a very interesting thing. Driven mostly by our own frame of reference, it is our interpretation of events and situations and plays a large part in decision-making - particularly in business.

Even more curious is how perspective can be slightly altered or even completely changed when you are temporarily removed from a situation or environment. Such is the importance of having a mentor to independently provide such perspective, as I have previously described.

I have recently returned from a break and it is fair to say that on a number of levels my perspectives about situations and Wanganui in general have changed - some of the shifts have been material to say the least. You also get an appreciation that there is a big world out there and we took the opportunity to meet and get to know some new people, from New Zealand, Australia and the US - each bringing interesting insights and viewpoints about the environment which we inhabit every day.

As an aside, most were aware of Wanganui, unaware of the things that currently challenge us and nearly all of them cannot understand why we are not positioning ourselves as a gateway to the ski fields - interesting.

Also assisting in this "transformation" has been a couple of business books which I have read and also having the ability to have zero media influences, which was a revelation.

So, you might ask, where are you going with this?

As we flew out of Wanganui (or more specifically were grounded by fog) we had the same aspirations as we do now but some environmental factors (much like those in your rear view mirror) actually appeared bigger than they really were. Likewise, a couple of opportunities were actually more significant when evaluated away from the "white noise" of everyday activity.

Have you ever achieved something which you might think is "par for the course" that when others have said "wow, that's awesome" that you see it in a different light? Sometimes it is a good idea to test your views away from every day clutter.

Recharging the batteries has a lot to do with this too, so if you haven't had a decent break in a while I would advocate that too.

I also managed to assist Junior Bell in developing his problem solving and project management skills. Again, this time in learning to swim, his perspective of how to do it without breathing in water was warped by past experience and an irrational view of the Splash Centre learners pool. With a little encouragement, and an opportunity to develop a new view, we soon had our own version of Michael Phelps.

As for project management, once I told him that he could use any tool at his disposal to rescue a beach ball trapped high up in a tree we soon had a maintenance man and a telescopic pool cleaner rescuing the ball from its branched captor.

"I didn't know I could do that," he said. Perspectives changed and results achieved.