About a year back, I happened to sit at the lunch table with one of the participants of a Leadership workshop I was conducting. Let us call him Arun.
As I tried to engage him in a polite conversation, I found him to be withdrawn and seemingly lost in some other thoughts. When I enquired about this, he blurted out, “Professor, I was trying to relate what you said in class to my interaction with a colleague. Every time we discuss a new project, she starts asking so many questions. By the time she’s finished, we’ve lost momentum.”
I asked, “What would you say makes her do that? Is it something she perceives about you?”
Arun smiled, “Probably that I move too fast.”
“Could it be that both of you right?” So saying, I took out my pen and drew a rough sketch on a piece of paper.
“Imagine a large forest,” I said. “Now imagine two people standing at different windows overlooking that forest. One person sees a waterfall. The other sees a mountain trail. Both are describing the same forest. But neither is seeing the whole picture.”
Arun leaned forward, “So you’re saying that’s what happens at work?”
“Every day,” I said. “We often assume that because we share an office, a company, a language, or even a country, we share the same perspective. But we don’t.
Each of us arrives at work carrying years of our very own specific experiences, beliefs, successes, disappointments, cultures, family influences and personal values. We may be looking at the same challenge. But we are never looking from the same window.
Arun was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “So when I think she’s slowing things down, she may think she’s reducing risk.”
“Exactly.”
Arun nodded slowly, understanding dawning on his face, “And when she thinks I’m rushing, I may simply be focused on opportunity.”
The conversation shifted. We stopped talking about who was right and started talking about what each person could see that the other could not. That’s when something interesting happened. The earlier uncertainty seemed to disappear, curiosity taking its place.
I have noticed that many workplace conflicts begin with a simple assumption: “If I see it this way, everyone else should see it this way too.”
But diversity is not simply about nationality, gender, age, language or background. It is about perspective. It is about recognising that another person’s life has given them a view of the world that is different from ours. And that can be valuable precisely because it is different. The irony is that organisations spend enormous amounts of money searching for innovation, yet innovation is often hiding inside the perspectives we dismiss too quickly. If everyone in a meeting thinks the same way, the discussion may be comfortable. But it is unlikely to be transformative.
Before we left, Arun said something that stayed with me. “You know Professor, I spent the entire time of our interaction trying to convince her to look through my window. Maybe I should spend more time looking through hers.”
That, perhaps, is the real gift of diversity. Not that it makes agreement easier. But that it makes understanding deeper. The world does not need more people defending their windows. It needs more people willing to explore the forest. And every time we replace judgment with curiosity, comparison with appreciation, and certainty with learning, the forest becomes a little larger than we imagined.
What if the next breakthrough in your life is waiting in a perspective you have not yet taken the time to understand?
In musing…… Shakti Ghosal
A New Beginning 