Is it possible to be right and wrong at the same time? In a word, yes.
A little over a decade ago, I was in a workshop with a person who, at the time, was considered to be one of the hottest coaching consultants and motivational speakers in the country. He had recently motivated the Florida Gators Men’s Basketball Team to the NCAA Championship game and was credited for motivating winning football programs at Notre Dame, Miami, and Nebraska. The workshop I was in that day was a very intimate setting; it included only three people and me.
During our workshop, the coaching consultant took us through a simple but powerful exercise.
To begin the exercise, he told us to close our eyes. While our eyes were closed, he set a chair in front of us and placed several random items on the seat – a watch, a wallet, a glass, salt shaker, sugar packets, etc.
I was standing in front of the chair, but a little off to the left. Another person was also in front of the chair, but off to the right. A third person was standing behind the chair.
Finally, he draped a jacket over the back of the chair. He then instructed us to open our eyes and tell him what was on the chair.
I said, “I see a watch, a wallet, a glass, and a jacket.” The person to my right said, “a glass, a salt shaker, some sugar packets, and a jacket. The person behind the chair said, “I only see a jacket.”
Who was correct? All of us, and none of us.
We were looking at the same object and were each telling the truth about what we saw, yet each of us saw something different.
At this point, we had a choice: Argue about who was correct, or work as a team to take into account everyone’s unique perspective and uncover a complete answer.
He then took us outside and walked us over to a wooden fence. Along the fence, there were a few naturally occurring holes in the wood planks. He assigned each of us a hole to peer through and asked us to take note of what we saw. After about 5 minutes, he gathered us together to share what each of us saw. Again, all of our answers differed.
We were all looking in the same direction, but our knotholes limited our ability to see the full picture.
He brought us back inside to unpack the lesson.
He explained that we each have a unique set of experiences that inform our perspective of the world. That perspective is our knothole. And it is wise to understand that during times when we think we see and know everything about a particular issue, we are limited by our knothole.
Then, it is up to us to decide: argue, or grow?
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Ok, that’s all for today. Good luck out there!
#CreateSomethingGreat
