Ever get the sense you’re listening to a talking head, someone who is is parroting someone else’s words?  Does your boss ever expect you to be a  human ventriloquist with him or her pulling the strings and you voicing their stuff?

Welcome to the world of unengaged employees.  Of staff caught in a maze blindly following those ahead, with all bodily appendages crossed, hoping to get to the cheese one day.

While being a parrot or a human ventriloquist is easy (press auto pilot, disengage brain) it’s also soul sucking.  As the New Year approaches, here’s to forging your own trail, voicing your own opinions, living your own values …

…which can all be more easily done if your radar is tuned into understanding different perspectives, into making sense of what can sometimes seem like Latin – ‘You want me to do what? what are you talking about?’   ‘Speak English!  Oh wait you are speaking English, but it sure doesn’t sound like it!’

Or from the perspective of the Life Lensesâ„¢ (on a bad day):

• ‘all you’re doing is saying mushy/feeling stuff- I don’t get it’ (Head Life Lensâ„¢ to Heart Life Lensâ„¢)
• ‘well all you’re doing is focusing on the facts – there’s more to life than what you can see, touch and taste’ (Heart Life Lensâ„¢ to Head Life Lensâ„¢)

• ‘get your head up- I don’t care what angle the staple is at on the proposal, we have more important things to worry about’ (Mountain Life Lensâ„¢ to a Carrot Life Lensâ„¢)
• ‘just answer my question then, give me specifics, get your head out of the clouds’ (Carrot Life Lensâ„¢ to a Mountain Life Lensâ„¢)

• ‘oh mother of mertle, we don’t have time to read 10 more reports before making a decision – just decide!’ (Go Life Lensâ„¢ to a Stop Life Lensâ„¢)
• ‘I’d be better able to make a decision and move forward if I didn’t feel like you were rushing me and asking us to jump off a cliff without knowing what’s down there’ (Stop Life Lensâ„¢ to a Go a Life Lensâ„¢)

• ‘you’re so focused on the goal you’ll do anything to get there, whether or not it’s the right way to be heading’ (Journey Life Lensâ„¢ to a Destination Life Lensâ„¢)
• ‘that may be so but you have no direction, you’re aimless, directionless’ (Destination Life Lensâ„¢ to a Journey Life Lensâ„¢)

Explore your own perspective – where you shine and where the dark spots are, what you tend to notice and what you tend to miss.  Then shift and stretch so you can better understand others.

In the meantime enjoy the following clip of a real human ventriloquist.