Interesting point!

Reminds me of an elegant quote from John Heider, author of The Tao of Leadership:

"Learn to see things backwards, inside out, and upside down."!

By the way, the late creativity maestro Dr Edward de Bono, often acknowledged as the Father of Lateral Thinking, who had asserted about the imperativeness and urgency of embracing multiple perceptions and the fluidity of perception, in order for a professional to stay relevant in today's VUCANT world.

I am no male chauvinist. I just want to use this nice picture to illustrate an important point about personal creativity.

Whatever you focus on in the first instance is your ''foreground'', as in the case of viewing the following pictures. That's to say, whatever else you don't see and/or have missed is actually the ''background'', where the gorilla appears.

Most hidden opportunities are often located in the ''background''. 

We have got to learn to switch perspectives, by mentally pushing the ''foreground'' into the ''background'', and bringing the ''background'' into the ''foreground''.

Doing so allows you to see what's actually out there.

Bear in mind that our mind is hardwired to focus on dominant perspectives. This has to do with our human evolution from the days of our forefathers who were hunters-gatherers. 

When hunting, their predominant activity while looking across the long horizons, was to constantly watch for minute movements in the bushes across the open Savannah, so as to deal with their fight-freeze-flight response.

As creativity guru Dr Edward de Bono puts it, personal creativity comes from the ability to have multiple perceptions or perspectives, as well as the fluidity of perception.

Think about it!

One of my most rewarding experiences of reading widely, and reading deeply, as well as reading differently, over a board array of books and other mediums is picking up gems or mining gold.

Here's one for sharing:

"Every change leader needs bifocal vision."

It comes from business consultant Karl Albrecht's 'The Northbound Train: Finding the Purpose, Setting the Direction, Shaping the Destiny of Your Organization'.

As I read, it's the ability to perceive accurately things happening further out toward the horizon that will inevitably affect our lives as well as the ability to focus on the more immediate, pressing events in our environment.

This ability to see the faraway field as well as the nearby field, and to deal comfortably with both is relatively rare. Indeed it is often not easy thing to do.

However, from personal experience, it can be learned and improved upon with deliberate practice.

To me, this assertion from the author resonates in many ways with what creativity guru Edward de bono has often encouraged us to do:

"... to adopt fluidity of perception as well as multiple perceptions in our view of the world at large..."

In a nut shell, he means to constantly enhance our perceptual sensitivity to what's happening in our environment.

In summing up, strategically and tactically, perceptual sensitivity is often the "driving force" behind our creativity innovation.

More precisely, possibility thinking or opportunity scanning starts where we see the horizon, far and near.

What's your thought?

Yep! Sad to say, our brains are hardwired to egocentric anchoring and adjustment.

We therefore need perspective taking, especially in terms of embracing multiple perceptions and the fluidity of perception.

Doing so will help us to counteract expression of bias and decrease implicit bias. 

THE FLUIDITY OF PERCEPTION: PERSONAL MUSINGS

I am a perpetual student of the working mechanism of our daily thinking processes, irrespective of whether it has to do with critical, creative or strategic thinking as applied to business.

Whenever I come across interesting stuff in my reading that touches on thinking processes, I am always fascinated.

For example, I read this wonderful observation from Japan's legendary combat strategist during the 16th century, Miyamoto Musashi:

". . . In strategy, it is important to see distant things as if they were close, & to take a distanced view of close things."

What does it mean? As far as I understand it, our sensei was essentially pointing out the importance of the fluidity of perception.

Mental flexibility, in a nut shell, at least from the tactical perspective.

I always hold the view that the fluidity of perception or mental flexibility is very important in our personal lives, as well as in the workplace.

In the early years of my exploration into personal mastery & peak performance, one of the most productive learning experiences is the understanding of the basic functions of the human mind.

Despite its intricacies & idiosyncasies, the human mind has five basic functions:

1) Perception;

2) Thought;

3) Emotion;

4) Memory;

5) Communication;

Actually, there is a sixth function: Intuition.

So, as you can see, in order to change your communication, where one's thoughts are eventually put to work, true change can only take place in your perception.

As I recall, Stephen Covey hits the nail with this insight:

"The way you see the problem is the problem."

I reckon creativity guru Edward de bono says it best:

"Creativity starts at the perceptual stage of thinking. This is where our perceptions & concepts are formed, & this is where they have to be changed. Most of the mistakes in thinking are inadequacies of perception rather than mistakes of logic."

In fact, he goes further to say:

"The reasons that many opportunities pass us by is a perceptual one - we do not recognise an opportunity for what it is. An opportunity exists only when we see it."

"Everyone is surrounded by opportunities. But they only exist once they have been seen. And they will only be seen if they are looked for."

If one scans through every success literature in print, one can quickly realise that one of the primary hallmarks of peak performance or success achievement is always the perception habit.

Interestingly, the HeartMath people, well-recognised in their pioneering research work on energy engineering & stress management, has concluded that stress, a phenomenon of our prevailing hard-pressed world, is essentially an issue of:

- problem with perception;

- problem with communication;

I like to elaborate on the first one.

For me, I often like to interpret it as an inability on our part to see the world in "grey areas", that's to say, we are stucked in only "black & white".

As a result, we just can't let go of that overwhelming single perspective, & learn to explore & accept another perspective of the issue.

I also reckon that this issue has also got to do with the fact that we often waste our time thinking about certain stuff that we cannot change, rather than spending our thinking time about some stuff that we can change.

Just think about it, as a good example, we are all born without our permission, explicit or implicit, which is a certainty that we cannot change at all, & yet some of us like to blame our parents &/or the home environment, instead of exploring ways to attain a better life with who we are & what we have at our immediate disposal.

To ride on what Edward de bono has taught me, changing our perception & having multiple perceptions as well as maintaining the fluidity of perception, give us tremendous power to come up with more & better solutions.

Come to think of it, what I am talking about is quite akin to the following observation from novelist & poet F Scott Fitzgerald:

"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function."

I also like to take this opportunity to bring up a great example closer to home.

The way I see it, our beloved Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, often recognised by other world leaders for his strategic geo-political insights as well as foresights, has often personally demonstrated what all the above-mentioned gurus have exhorted.

I reckon one of the most profound demonstrations was his all-encompassing selection criteria - stretching to both cognitive extremes - for ministers to serve in the government, which resulted in what all Singaporeans are very proud to call Our Home today:

- helicoper ability: the ability to rise above the immediate scene & see it from a total & overall perspective;

- analytical ability;

- imagination;

- realism: having one's feet firmly placed on the ground;

THE ART & DISCIPLINE OF REFRAMING

Although 'reframing' may have its application origins in neuro-linguistics programming or NLP, it is actually just a simple process of changing the context or representation of a problem or issue at hand.

In reality, it is "shifting the meaning of" or "changing the way we think about" the problem or issue at hand.

That is to say, the meaning of anything is found essentially in the mental frame within which we view it.

According to NLP experts, when we perceive something as a problem, that's the message we send to our brain.

Then, the brain produces states in our body that make it a reality.

When we change our frame of reference by looking at the same problem from a different viewpoint, we can change our response to it.

More precisely, we can change our perception &/or representation about anything – object, event or process, situation, circumstance, people, idea – by according it a different meaning, & thus, allowing us to take a different approach & giving us new possibilities for the actions that we might take & the responses we might execute.

This is what 'reframing' is all about.

For a better understanding, I like to point out that 'reframing' is about changing or shifting perception.

However, since I am not an NLP junkie, I will approach 'reframing' from a slightly different perspective.

I want to use 'reframing' as a strategy for problem solving & opportunity discovery.

Over the years, I have learned more than a dozen possible ways – remember, I rode on the shoulders of giants before me - to reframe a problem or challenge, & would like to share them with readers:

1) Personality Frame:

- Just imagine that you are the problem i.e. adopt the personality, & explore how you feel & act exactly like the problem;

- In the proprietary Synectics process, it's called the 'personal analogy' approach;

2) Opposite Frame:

- Look at contrasting possibilities of the problem;

- Our mind tend to look at only "similarities", & often "contrasts" can add another dimension to our viewpoint;

3) Flex Frame:

- Change the attributes of the problem to see how you can flex it at will, say with the help of SCAMPER;

- Explore the problem by shifting from pessimistic to optimistic, (or from "hell scenario" to "heaven scenario", so to speak) & then back to neutral, standpoints;

- Push the "foreground" of what you can see into the "background", & then bring the "background" immediately into the "foreground" - hidden possibilities often lurk in the "background";

4) Future Frame:

- Play with futuristic scenarios, say 5, 10, 20 years down the road, to see how the problem can be addressed, especially when you can own unlimited power, money, time, & resources;

- Your futuristic scenarios can take the form of global, regional, industry, market, product, organisational or personal levels;

5) Failure Frame:

- Approach the problem from the standpoint of “failing forward faster” [award-winning innovator Dr Jack Matson calls it "intelligent fast failure"], by viewing the potential consequences as "opportunities";

- Our mind tend to look at "success" only, whereas looking at "failure" brings many possibilities to the problem, often not recognised from looking the other way;

6) Fun Frame:

- Approach the problem from the standpoint of a curious child, or a circus clown, with joy of play & sense of wonder at your disposal;

- Just think of what Dr Seuss would do!;

7) Friends Frame:

- Get as many viewpoints as possible about the problem from your friends, especially those who aren't afraid to be honest with you, or even family members or colleagues; [do you have friends like those characters in the 'Friends' & 'Seinfeld' sitcoms?]

- This approach will certainly help to remove some of your own blind spots;

8) Fame Frame:

- Imagine you are Einstein or Edison or Tesla, & explore how your new self would solve the problem;

- You can also include celebrities &/or renowned thought leaders like Peter Drucker or even MM Lee Kuan Yew;

9) Fiction Frame:

- Imagine your are Sherlock Holmes or Dick Tracy or Peter Columbo, & then explore how they would tackle the problem;

- Try MacGyver or Jason Bourne;

10) Fantasy Frame:

- Go to the extremes, or out of this world, into 'Fantasyland', or to "where no man has gone before", to explore the problem;

- Just imagine how 'Alien' &/or 'Predator' or the two outerspace creatures in combination would tackle the problem & come up with a solution;

11) Flip-side Frame:

- Look at the upside & the downside or reverse side of the problem;

12) Whole-Brain Frame:

- Explore the problem by walking with the 'rational bottom-line', 'conservative procedural', 'emotional people-oriented', & 'intuitive big-picture', viewpoints;

- When looking at a problem situation, learn to expand your field of vision, from "focal" to "wide angle" view, to get that "soft focus", so as to allow more information to flow into your senses, especially the sense of sight [business innovation strategist Wayne Burkan calls it "splatter vision", a technique now practised by FBI/US Secret Service agents to spot potential risks in one broad sweep!]

13) Five Senses Frame:

- Explore the problem using all the five physical senses, e.g. seeing, listening, smelling, tasting & touching;

As you can see from the many resultant possibilities, 'reframing' actually enhances one's fluidity of perception, which, at least from my personal & professional experiences, is very critical to the onset of the creative &/or problem solving process.

I like to end this post with an apt quote from French novelist Marcel Proust (1871-1922):

"The real act of discovery consists not in finding new lands but in seeing with new eyes."

[This post has been extracted & adapted from the 'Optimum Performance Technologies' weblog.]