Hi, I'm Diane Grassell and I'm also known as silver
Disobedience. So thank you for joining me for
this podcast today. I want to talk about something
that certainly fascinates me and sometimes boggles my mind, and
it might boggle your mind too, but it's really the idea that
there's two sides to every coin. There are many times in our
lives where we will be thinking about it or observing a
particular situation, whatever it is, that whether it's work,
political, in our personal lives.
And we truly cannot fathom that another might hold a view or a
perspective that is completely different from ours regarding
something that we believe to be very important.
So sometimes we even find the perspectives others hold to be
downright shocking. Like where could they be coming
up with this nonsense from? How could they be thinking this?
It's so obvious to us and we cannot understand why anyone
else could see anything differently.
So today I want to explore how that happens.
So the next time you're confronted with someone that
sees something like you're here and there 180° in the other
direction, maybe if you think from this perspective that I'm
going to share, you'll be able to start a conversation with
that person instead of just saying they're out of their
minds, they're crazy. Because the more we do that and
the other person may be out of their mind are crazy.
But the more we do that, most of the time someone's not out of
their mind or crazy. They're just either getting
their news from a different source.
They're seeing things differently.
They're not being open minded enough to other possibilities.
And that goes for us as well. We have to be open minded.
We have to be open minded to what other people are thinking
and saying if we want to have good communication or if at
least we want to understand where the communication is going
awry. So to help you understand how
people can have very different perspectives on any particular
topic, I'm going to use the example of a company wide layoff
to explain it. So let's imagine we are all
working with a company and it's a big company and it has all
different constituents within it that are watching the news of
this company and trying to figure out what's going on and
come up with their perspectives and why these layoffs are
happening. So let's start at the top with
the CEO, the chief executive officer of the company from the
CEO's perspective or the chief financial officer, the CFO or
anyone responsible for the bottom line of the company,
whether that's to shareholders or to themselves or their own
pockets. A layoff is never a first choice
for sure, because it means things are going maybe a little
backwards or they're not going quite as we planned or we've got
fact that, I mean, it involves people.
No one loves the idea of letting go of people.
But from the CE OS perspective, it might be seen as necessary
for the long term viability of the company.
Now let's look at it from the human resources perspective.
From an HR manager's perspective, the focus would
likely be on legal and ethical aspects of the process.
So the HR person, if they have to deal with the layoffs,
they're going to want to ensure the employees that you know,
that are being terminated are treated fairly and in accordance
with any labor laws while providing support and guidance
to the remaining employees during any transition like a
layoff. Now let's get to, let's say
there are unions involved. From the perspective of a union
representative, the layoff event would be seen as a threat to job
security and maybe employee rights.
So the representative would be advocating for the affected
employees, negotiating with management to maybe minimize the
number of layoffs and ideally secure fair severance packages.
So again, another perspective. And they might try to protect
the rights of the remaining employees and ensure that the
company follows any relevant collective bargaining agreements
or other things that have been put in place by the union with
the company. Then, of course, there's the
perspective of the employee and in the event they are being let
go, certainly this would be a disrupting event to their lives
and it would disrupt their ability maybe to pay bills or
care for their families. So suddenly they'll be hoping,
let's say, maybe for a reasonable compensation package
or, you know, consider plans while they seek new options
where they're seeking new employment or parallel careers
or something in an entirely different industry.
So you've got a lot of different perspectives just within the
company. Now, you could take the
financial analysts that might be watching this company, let's say
it's publicly traded on Wall Street or something like that.
So from the perspective of financial analysts, the layoff
might be seen as a sensible cost cutting measure.
They're immune to the emotional impact of it.
They're just saying cost cutting was necessary and this is aimed
at improving the company's financial performance and bottom
line for the shareholders. And the analysts might assess
the financial health of the company and analyse the impact
of the layoffs on the bottom line.
And then of course, they're going to provide their
recommendations or their insights on how they think this
achieves desired cost savings for the company, how it will
affect the balance sheet in the long haul.
A financial analysis going to be focused on the metrics such as
profitability, efficiency, the return on investment to justify
this decision to the variety of shareholders or maybe even
stakeholders. Then you have the public
relations person that has to deal with the stress and get
this message out and try to deliver the message to all the
constituents. And so from the perspective of
the public relations specialist, the layoff might be perceived as
the potential reputational risk for the company.
So because maybe people are going to think the company's
going out of business, it's poorly run, it's not caring for
its employees. There any any number of things
that the public relations person, if they're good, it's
going to look and think about and think about all the
perspectives, all the stakeholders.
And they would focus on managing the external perception of the
layoff, crafting messages to communicate the company's
rationale and ensuring that anybody affected any of the
affected employees, for example, are treated with empathy and
respect. A good PR specialist might also
develop strategies that can be used to rebuild trust with the
stakeholders and the existing stakeholders, which could be
partners, employees, regulators, the neighborhood that the
company was in, mitigate any negative publicity that could
arise from the event. So this is an example of a
single event, a corporate layoff.
And as you saw from the example I gave you, we're looking at the
exact same event. There was a corporate layoff,
yet distinct perspectives arise based on how the situation is
impacting the individual and their role within that
organization. So if we consider this fact, we
might all observe and certainly experience the exact same
moment, very different. We're all seeing it different
and we're certainly perceiving its impact differently as well.
It really helps to draw on something like this when you're
dealing with politics, neighborhood disagreements,
developments within your neighborhood.
So in light of all this, next time you have a communication
breakdown or need to break some, let's say, potentially difficult
news to a group of people or to someone, you might want to
really carefully consider the delivery and make sure you're
giving all the recipients of the news ample time to ask questions
so that they can clarify the news developments from their own
perspective. Because if you give them time to
absorb it, that will. And you share the perspectives
and you take the time to listen to theirs, it will hopefully get
people aligned at some point with where you are and where
you're going in that potentially crisis communication situation.
I want to thank you for tuning in.
And my name is Diane, PhD. I'm also known as silver
disobedience. I'm a perception analyst and I'm
a hypnotherapist and I work with individuals and companies all
over the world. And my goal is to help them
achieve a greater understanding of how our conscious and
unconscious perspectives or beliefs impact everything we do
and how they change how we see things.
And if we can understand our perspectives and how we're
seeing something, and then take the time to understand maybe how
someone else is seeing the exact same situation, things can start
to move forward. And hopefully communication can
improve. And this can apply to business,
it can apply to politics and apply to personal relationships
of every kind. OK, It's getting to understand
that we may see things one way, but there could be a reason
someone else sees it another way.
And somewhere there's a compromise in the middle.
And that compromise isn't always 5050.
It might be 99 one, it could be anything, but somewhere there is
a way to move forward. So again, I'm Diane Grassell, I
share actionable insights on this podcast every time.
It's for free. You can also go to my website,
whichisdianegrassell.com, which is my name, and any of my social
media accounts, which you'll find either under my name, Diane
Grassell or as Silver Disobedience.
I share perceptions of all kinds and I look forward to seeing you
on any of my pages. Thanks a lot for joining me.
Take care and you have a great day.