Perspective

Two weeks ago, Andrew Jacobs posted a question on LinkedIn about 'catchphrases' and what we thought our catchphrases would be... (https://www.linkedin.com/posts/andrewjacobslnd_catchphrases-i-was-thinking-about-the-activity-7224380929857748992-SBde?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop ).

My answer was immediate and probably came as no surprise to him or some of his other readers.

It was this.

#LookUp (but you knew that already!)

And only a few days later, facebook reminded me of a post I did some 8 years ago, wherein I ‘cartooned’ the same catchphrase

So, if that’s my catchphrase, what does it mean?

Quite frankly, it’s in the eye of the beholder. If it resonates for anyone else, it’s probably related to their own personal or professional situation and experience.

For me, it means lifting my eyes up from what’s immediately in front of me, looking for other, wider perspectives.

My Instagram account’s full of photos looking up. I’m an armchair astronomer and satellite watcher. I’m nosy. If I’m out walking, be it in town, country or seaside, I’m always checking out the upper levels of buildings, the cloud patterns in the sky. If I’m visiting a National Trust or other heritage building, I look at the turrets and roofs from the outside and the ceilings and stairwells from the inside.

And I learn new things.

As a physical act, looking up requires me to shift my focus, from what’s directly in front of me, transitioning through to the distance ahead and onward up to the roof, the treetops and/or ‘the heavens’.

Spending much of my time, as I still do, in front of the laptop, taking a break from the close-up view (which is physically tiring on the eye muscles) relaxing them and looking into the distance and up is important. That very act invites reflection, a pause, an adjustment of perspective – and often presents some new insights.

You might also have noticed that sometimes ‘Look Up’ becomes ‘#LookUp’. It’s been one of my social media hashtags for years now. And it seems I’m not the only one – many people have posted on different social media channels using #LookUp as their hashtag.

Try searching for the #LookUp hashtag on your SoMe channels of choice and be inspired by others’ different perspectives. And maybe share a few of your own.

Seeing the Bigger Picture

I've just come back from a short holiday visiting friends in the South of France, an hour North of Toulouse. They have a lovely old French farmhouse with an acre of land on the edge of a tiny village in the Occitanie region (https://about-france.com/regions/midi-pyrenees.htm). Consequently, the nights are dark and the stars are gloriously bright.

My pal was keen to share his new star-gazing equipment, a computer controlled, 8-inch reflecting telescope, a thing of beauty in itself. One night we lugged it out onto the edge of his patio area and we settled in for an evening's star and planet watching.

Photo by Usukhbayar Gankhuyag on Unsplash

It's been a long time since I've seen such dark skies and my eyes were instantly drawn upwards to view the beautiful Milky Way (the edge-on view of our own spiral galaxy) meandering across the void, interspersed with hundreds and thousands of individual stars and immediately recognisable planets (Mars, Saturn and Jupiter being the brightest and most prominent in the South).

As I gazed up in wonder (I never tire of the majesty of the night sky), my pal was struggling to get his telescope properly aligned, so that once we had selected any one object (Mars, for example), the computer would take over and follow it's progress. Unable to help, I continued to scan the heavens.

Ignoring the background muttering, fiddling with glasses, handsets and cables, and the increasing frustration of my pal, I saw a couple of meteors, some satellites, excellent (although not in detail) viewing of Mars, Saturn and Jupiter, various constellations and of course, the over-arching Milky Way.

My pal didn't.

With the best of intentions (to share closer views through his expensive equipment), he got lost in the tech and in so doing, missed the joy of just looking up and enjoying the big picture. Even when I reassured him that I was having a grand time doing just that, his frustration and some embarrassment, excluded him from the more natural and ancient act of just looking and wondering.

That said, we did manage to get some brief closer views of Mars and Saturn (the Rings!) through the telescope, but without the proper alignment and auto-tracking, they were just that, brief.

Sometimes, tech is not the answer, not the enabler you were hoping for. Sometimes you just have to #LookUp.

Generally Curious

Yesterday, I downloaded Don Taylor's (@DonaldHTaylor) Global Sentiment Survey 2018 report, the results of his annual survey based around one single question, "What do you think will be hot in L&D next year?". It was really interesting to see the "What will be hot?" trends rising, falling or lingering in the rankings over the last four years, with #AI (Artificial Intelligence) being the fastest riser from previous years.

This didn't come as a great surprise to me and, the more I read through the report, the less surprised I was by the rest of the general findings. And I got to wondering why that might be.

The answer seemed to lie in the fact that I keep my eyes open and my ears attuned to what's going on in Learning and Development, Learning Technologies, HR and business, partly because that's my professional arena, but it's also because I am genuinely interested in, and want to know more about this stuff for myself as much as for any current or future clients.

And I'm nosy! But I'm a nosy Generalist. Not just in work, but in life. My 'strapline' in my social media and professional profiles, and indeed, in the title of this blog, is 'I know a little about a lot and a lot about very little'. It's become my Personal Brand. And it reflects my curiosity, my inquisitiveness, my need to maintain and update a personal knowledge bank to enable me to function as a contributing member of the human race, as much as in my professional arena. I read; I watch and listen to the News; I listen to podcasts when I can, I talk to colleagues, friends, acquaintances in social media and in my face-to-face social and professional networks.

So, I wasn't overly surprised about AI being such a high flyer in Don's report, because I've been paying attention. People I follow - in the L&D, HR and Tech arena, but also in the 'real world', the Press, broadcasters, social media, general population and my friends are also seemingly discussing the opportunities and threats of automation and artificial intelligence. I got an Amazon Echo, precisely because I wanted to understand it's capabilities and relevance for both my own professional and personal knowledge.  (So far, it's made shopping easier and it's good source of music and, in my view, it may be artificial, but it ain't yet intelligent!). Now, if someone were to ask me about AI, at least I have an informed opinion. At least I can enter into a discussion about it from a reasonably well-informed position and we can have a good chat about it. Or I can connect them to other people in my network who have more specialist knowledge and experience than I.

And this goes to the heart of my thinking, and my question to you - Are you a Generalist or a Specialist? Do you Look Up from your own safe, 'specialist' position at work or in life, peer over the top of your life/work silo and sniff the air around you? Do you know what's going on in 'the real world'? And are you able to translate that back and connect it into your own life & work and that of others around you? Because nowadays, we need to be able to do just that.

We need to be nosy, inquisitive, curious, interested (and interesting), because we live in interesting times - dynamic, fast-changing, inter-connected, scary times. We need to have the skills to be able to challenge received information, to not accept things at face value, to probe, to explore. We need to build the resilience, attitude and skills that will enable us to flex, adapt, change direction, and/or alter our very behaviours. Again. And again. 

I see many nowadays with a hardening narrowness of view, no peripheral vision, an inability to connect the apparently unconnected, lacking the skills to recognise the impacts of one thing on another and who, consequently, are unable to see and prepare for what may lie ahead. I see it in both my professional and my personal life. And it worries me.

The world is changing. Life is changing. Work is changing. #LookUp!

Coming Up For Air

Quick one...

 

Sometimes we're so busy, our heads down, focused solely on the task or tasks in hand, that we forget to look up. Like people learning to snorkle dive in the sea, paddling furiously, breathing heavily as we try to balance ourselves between the world above water and the world below, whilst trying to keep ourselves afloat.  Exhausting ourselves; wearing ourselves out.

So, when we do finally lift our heads, we are surprised at how far we've come, how far away from the the safety of the shore we have taken ourselves. And what little time we have allowed ourselves to recover, just float and then gently paddle back - before we need to set off once again, heads down, vision blurred and sucking precious air down the snorkle tube for dear life. 

 

Each time taking ourselves that little bit further out, and further away from the beach.

Sound familiar?

#LookUp before it's too late.