Outside my office window is a tree that holds several bird feeders. At one point, I had a woodpecker in the suet, a finch in the thistle feeder, and some wrens in the birdseed. Ah, what a great analogy for supervision I thought — different approaches to suit varying styles and temperaments, etc.
So, I went to take a picture and realized that when I was looking out my window all I saw were these beautiful birds. What my camera saw was a window with decals and border strips, a screen, a sidewalk, a road, cars on the street in the background, and a driveway — all of which made the picture a very different perspective indeed!
But the exercise provides the real lesson for today: we see what we become focused on. If you are lasered-in on one point of view, you’re apt to disregard all the competing thoughts around it, even though they are as valid as your notion. (The cars weren’t any less present as the birds — I just didn’t see them.)
Before you become locked in on a narrow perspective, take a moment to approach the issue with a wide-angle lens. You may discover much more than initially is in your mind’s eye.
