Home | Login | Recent Changes | Search | All Pages | Help

PerspectiveStories

Thought I'd add this page of Perspective Stories to the PerspectivesOnPerception discussion as illustrations of situations where differing perspectives, or changing perspectives, come into play.

The View

Many years ago when I worked in the construction biz, a large property management company called me about doing an estimate for some work on one of their rental properties. I knew where it was located - in a down-at-the-heels neighborhood of rental duplexes, auto repair shops, and small, older strip malls.

When I drove up to the property, I saw that it had a small front yard with a chain link fence and there were some kids� toys, some car parts, and a few magazines scattered around the yard and front porch. Answering the doorbell was your stereotypical biker-type guy with a beard, long hair, bandana, and a pack of cigarettes tucked in the rolled up sleeve of his t-shirt. I introduced myself and we chatted a bit - he seemed like a nice enough guy, happy that someone was going to fix up his apartment. When I stepped inside, the place appeared a bit worn looking, and there were what appeared to be oil stains on the living room carpet. It wasn�t hard to figure out what the stains were since there was a motorcycle(!) parked in the living room. I didn�t say anything about it, figuring I was just the contractor and not the owner, and it didn�t seem to be a situation for saying anything critical about a guy�s solution to the local parking space shortage.

We eventually stopped chatting and mister oil-stains-on-the-carpet stared thoughtfully out the living room window, where we could see his porch and yard, a car with a cracked windshield parked on the street, a boarded-up liquor store, and cars and trucks whizzing by on the busy road. After a pause, he turned to me, pointed out the window, and said �Man, I was lucky to get this place. Is that a great view or what?�

I started to laugh, but stopped when I realized he wasn�t kidding. He really appreciated being able live in a place where he had a view of things that he was apparently comfortable and familiar with.

I used to think this was just a funny story � now I think it�s a perspective story.

-- RickHower 2004.10.18

The Hammer

Recently I had an interesting discussion with a friend who heads up strategic planning for a large organization. We discussed methods of organizational change when the organization is really, really stuck. He favors something that I usually don�t think about for IT organizations � the use of an �external hammer.� An example would be: if I am the organization person wanting a major change, I would develop allies among customer groups or outside stakeholders, getting them to agree (or them getting me to agree) to desired changes, and getting them to agree to provide the �hammer� � like explicitly threatening to cancel a contract, take their business elsewhere, cut off funding, etc�.

I tend to think of software organization changes as being preferably �internally-driven.� What I mean by this is illustrated by the joke about �How many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb? � none � the light bulb has to want to change.� But sometimes a less-patient approach might be better.

Seems like the �external hammer� approach is really just another method of creating a perceptual shift � the new perception (the new �internal driver�) being that �yes it is really and truly important that we change and we better do it now.�

Another �external hammer� sort of approach might be upper management telling a software group that it is going to outsource its work unless they improve such and such within a year.

I�m not so sure that I favor these types of forced perceptual shifts, given their potential for inappropriate application to software engineering problems, but perhaps they�re necessary in certain situations.

-- RickHower 2004.10.18

I've been using my Netflix subscription to see all those great flicks that I'd never heard of and loving it. This weekend, Diane and I watched "Diary of a Country Priest", 1950, directed by Robert Bresson. I was awed by it, not unlike my impression of the Satir Coaching Session I attended last year. I saw a film deeply about people with everyday flaws and everyday virtue, often confusing the former with the latter. The central scene has a verbal battle where an older women who has lost her son and tolerates a philandering husband discovers what she thought was stoical courage was merely denying cowardice and finds peace letting that go.

Fascinated, I searched IMDB for reviews on the movie. Apparently every reviewer on the list had seen a different movie. One focused on cinematic technique: camera angles, contrast, and Bresson's use of amateurs in the roles. Another found a deeply philosophical expression of existentialism from Kierkegaard to Satre in the film. A third saw a prototypical horror flick of tall brick walls and cast iron gates in a spare (and scary) countryside of empty fields, even suggesting that the main character's illness presaged the common vampire in the horror genre. I was stunned.

I like movies and I read reviews regularly. I'm used to filtering out the context of the critics to get at the meat of a set of reviews, so I can decide if I want to see a movie. But here, applying such a filter left next to nothing in common, except that it was a great film. How did Bresson do that?

MikeMelendez 2004.10.20