History and Philosophy of Life Lenses™

Hi, I’m Lee-Anne Ragan, BSW, MEd, President of Rock.Paper.Scissors (links to www.rpsinc.ca) and creator of the Life Lenses™.  I designed Life Lenses™ in 2002 after I kept noticing common blocks that were preventing my clients from:

  • resolving conflict

  • being more innovative and creative

  • working with diverse colleagues, bosses, clients etc that led to business success

  • communicating effectively

Thousands of people from more than 80 countries have learned to see and act more clearly using the Life Lenses™.  After repeated requests I’ve put the Life Lenses™ online so they’re available to anyone who wants them, including you!

Underlying Philosophy

Life Lenses is built upon a foundation of underlying beliefs and values.  Understand the beliefs and the lenses will be more easily understood.

Underlying beliefs about people and personalities:

  • We all have our own individualized perspective on life.
  • We are not neutral, though we often think we are.
  • We all believe our perspective to be natural, normal and right.
  • Our personal perspective is often unexamined and unconscious.
  • Our personalized perspective dramatically affects how we view and interpret other’s outlooks and actions.
  • We all wear blinders; blinders that colour our view and affect our effectiveness.
  • We need help to identify, adjust and accommodate for these blinders.

Underlying beliefs about groups and organizations:

  • Groups and organizations have cultures and unwritten rules about how to behave, what is acceptable, what goes and what doesn’t.
  • Group and organizational cultures are:
    • affected by our perspective or worldview
    • often unexamined and ignored
    • not neutral
  • Group and organizational cultures have a dramatic effect on workplace effectiveness, efficiency, and creativity.

Underlying beliefs about assessments:

  • Assessments are not tests. You can’t get a grade.  You can’t fail an assessment.
  • Assessments are a helpful way of taking complicated beings (that would be you and me) and their equally complicated behaviour (that would be ours) and boiling them down into some universal ways of being.
  • Good assessment tap into the human condition and give new tools for examining ourselves and others, and new options for action.
  • Good assessments are simple but not simplistic.
  • Good assessments are something you should be able to use on an ongoing basis.
  • The learning’s from good assessments should be able to be applied to a wide variety of professional situations (e.g. conflict resolution, communication, teambuilding, family)

A word or two about pain and suffering

Many other assessments are:

  • Boring
  • Hard to continue to use beyond doing the actual assessment.
  • Have few opportunities for continued learning and practical application.
  • Expensive
  • Complicated

Life Lenses have been designed to fill a gap in the market and to challenge those downsides.  So have fun and dive in.  Remember suffering …. is optional.

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