 Self
Development Best Practices
How you see
is what you see!
By
B e v v Beirl
This is a test!
Before reading this article,
grab a pencil and paper and write three statements
comparing the 4 objects above.
Have you ever been asked what the USP is of your
business? Maybe you decided to create a brochure or a
display ad to use in your marketing campaign and the
marketing company insisted you give them your USP.
Unique Selling Points set you apart from all the other
sandwich shops or carpet cleaners or insurance
companies. Your USP will highlight how you are
different, better and why a customer should do business
with you.
If you are a difference thinker this task will be
relatively easy. However if you are a sameness thinker,
you may find it difficult. What kind of thinker are you?
By doing the test before reading this article you will
be able to understand how you process or think through
challenges, assignments or tasks.
Being a difference thinker myself, as I write this
article I can think of all kinds of things to
demonstrate how a difference thinker analyzes tasks and
why it’s the best way to come to a conclusion. On the
other hand, my husband is a sameness thinker and I’ve
had to enlist his help in explaining that way of
thinking.
In our house, my husband will say, “Where do you want to
go to eat tonight?” I will answer, “Well I don’t want
seafood and I definitely don’t want pasta.” It drives
him crazy. Even when we arrive at the restaurant I will
go down the list and discard the selections. He’ll
listen to the specials, glance at the menu and proceed
to order the same thing he always orders at that
particular restaurant.
As a kid I used to love to identify the differences of
two drawings. You know the ones. They were usually in
our Highlights Magazine or the newspaper. I would time
myself to see how fast I could do it. On the other hand,
a sameness person would find the exercise of finding the
mistakes in a picture stressful or useless.
Have you ever had a staff meeting and brought up a
concern you have about the future of the company and had
a person say something like; “I don’t see the problem,
our revenues are about the same as they were last
quarter and our product is just as good as XYZ company.”
And on the other side of thinking, another person says;
“Are you kidding? Look at our phone expenses. They’re up
7% and our office supplies line item is up 5.5%. Joe
Client said he had 3 returns last month.” Both of these
people are valuable to your company if you recognize
their thinking style.
There are basic personality types and thinkers. Our
society is made up of a balance of all of them and
that’s important. We need the visionaries and pioneers
as well as the technocrats and analyticals. The key is
knowing who you are and how you process information. You
must be able to recognize what kind of thinker your
employees, colleagues, customers, spouses and children
are as well. By recognizing a person’s thinking style,
you are better prepared to optimize the mental assets of
your business or company. And just as important, if you
understand that your teenager is a difference person,
you will be able to understand why he/she disagrees with
you on everything including the color of his/her own
eyes.
So, what did you write about the four objects? Were your
statements something like this? “They’re all round.
They’re all American coins. They all have a head on
them.” Or did your statements look more like this?
“They’re all different sizes. They’re all different
denominations. One of them is copper.” And of course as
the scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz may point out, “some
do go both ways”. You may be a person who saw
similarities and differences equally.
Take the next few weeks to really listen to the people
around you. How do they describe or compare things? Also
pay attention to your own thinking style. Knowing that
you’re a sameness person will be valuable when you could
really use some analytical, difference thinking to solve
a challenge in your company.
If you’re a difference person, the sameness colleague
will be extremely valuable when it comes time to tie
everything together. My advice: look, listen and learn
how you and those around you think. It just may make all
the difference (I just can’t help myself) in your
business.
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Bevv Beirl has written and
spoken on human potential for over 25 years. Bevv is
also the Editor of Bay Area Business Magazine. You can
reach Bevv at
editor@babm.com or
www.babm.com
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Published September 2007,
Bay
Area Business Magazine
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