Adopting Other People's Stances

I am reviewing a book for my next newsletter about "Mindfulness" and Buddhism.

Its a most useful book. The author has taken Buddhism's salient features of inner calm and adopted some its meditation practices to achieve a more positive mindset.

One of the things he talks about consistently throughout the book is the value of adopting the stances or positions of other people in certain situations. This is usually the opposite to what he wants, or feels like, doing!

To take one quote:

"I experienced many different opinions at University. I have since realised that such differences often arose out of my tendency to cling to views I felt comfortable with, as well as not being able to understand why other’s wouldn’t feel comfortable with mine".

I had an example of this, this week! Every six months I attend a reunion with my old BBC colleagues. Its good to see everyone and the Managing Director of our old division is assiduous in arranging them. He is now retired and I think is quite nostalgic about them.

I did say to him last month that I felt we ought to be careful about not arranging too many otherwise the appeal will subside and we ran the risk of losing people's interest. He disagreed! He said that a number of people were asking when the netx one would be and that they were keen to keep them going.

This week I met with another ex-BBC colleague who was unable to attend the last reunion as she was unwell. I mentioned the above point to her. She disagreed with me also and concurred with what our ex-boss has concluded. She felt that it was better having them more regularly so that they became a regular feature, meaning that people could always stay in contact.

This way, though some people would probably be unable to attend - which would usually be the case anyway - at least a broad majority would be able to do so. This was better than having them once a year as I had suggested which ran he risk of people losing touch and the whole exercise petering out!

I think she was right. I am now going to try and go along with other people's approaches in areas like this at work. Its a way of demonstrating empathy; is less contentious (I won't be disagreeing with people by going against the flow) and it will be a learning opportunity insofar as it will be adopting the stance of the mainstream.

The author of the above text Chris Mitchell has started introducing small adjustments into his daily routine to try and be more susceptible to change when it unexpectedly occurs.

This is something that I have also been doing over the last few years. I think that the technique of adopting the stance of others in a work context with events or major issues as outlined above, could also be very beneficial.