What is the U Perspective and Why Do You Care

Someone's U Perspective is how they see the world-- what they care about. Their U Perspective will inform the way an individual sees a particular situation and how they are likely to respond to it. How someone else views what is going on may be very different from how you see it.

There are specific techniques that can help you determine someone's U Perspective. Once you take the time and effort to understand someone, you can determine what motivates them generally and what will motivate them under the circumstances. That might be money, friendship, status, helping others or any of a number of other motivators. That allows you not only to predict what they are likely to do, but also to affect their behavior.

If you correctly understand someone's U Perspective and operate from it in a non-judgmental way, you will be in sync with what they are thinking and therefore will be able to influence their actions. Their point of view - their U Perspective - lets you know what they need and want. If you can provide that to them in a way that suits my needs as well, I can create a mutually beneficial solution. In negotiating or sales terms, this is a win/win solution. In leadership terms it is how you gain buy-in from your employees. In reality it is more powerful than either of these concepts. Everyone’s values are respected and solutions are found that are expressly suited to each individual’s wants and needs.

This is especially true in terms of how a prospective boss see a candidate. If you understand their U Perspective you know which of your skills and experience to emphasize when you are being interviewed. Hiring manager's are typically motivated by the need to solve the most immediate challenges they are confronting. If you can show someone how you can help them solve the problems that are keeping them awake at night, you are well on your way to getting the job or the promotion you seek.

Career Change Can Be Very Rewarding

I am in the Berkshires at a golf resort with a friend, and client, who publishes a golf and resort guides. He started his career as a lawyer and had developed a successful practice. A friend of his needed a favor. She was the editor of a monthly regional lifestyle magazine. They were doing a special edition with a section that covered all the major golf courses in the region. Their writer had just pulled out. My friend was a good golfer, a good writer and had previously helped another friend, a professional golfer, write a golf book. She asked him if he would take a little time off, come down and write the section for her. She, of course, offered to pay him.

He called me for advice. He wanted to do it, but financially it did not make any sense for him. While he wasn't really happy with the work he was doing, it certainly paid much better then working as a freelance writer. He was thinking about doing it anyway, as a favor to his friend and because it sounded like fun. We talked about it for a while. Then I suggested a way that he could write the piece and make money. Since we were dealing with a magazine that was not in the guide business I knew that they only intended to use what he wrote one time, when the monthly magazine was published. So I suggested he sell the magazine the right to first publication and exclusive rights thereafter for 90 days. Then the rights to what he wrote would revert to him. Since that was all the magazine was going to use the material for anyway and because they were in a bit of a bind, they readily agreed. After the 90 days he republished the material, along with a map of the courses, some additional photo spreads and some articles about other attractions in the region as a golf guide. He was able to get advertisers to run ads in the guide and the golf courses and resorts to purchase reprints. In that way he was able to make a nice profit.

The story does not end there. He was so successful, and enjoyed it so much, that he gave up the work he was doing and began to publish golf and resort guides internationally, using that same formula. He now travels all over the world, stays in fabulous resorts and has published guides in such exotic places as Thailand and the Dominican Republic. What started as a lark became a fulfilling and financially rewarding second career for my friend.

Everything started with a single project that he did for two weeks while on vacation from his regular job. If you do not find fulfillment in what you are doing, you don't have to quit your job. Start small. See if you can turn a hobby into a second career. Moonlight. Try things out on weekends and when you have vacation time. You never know where it will take you.