Being trapped inside of your own perspective can leave you ill-equipped to recognize problems and come up with solutions, says Derek Shorkey, managing partner at the Vancouver-based marketing agency Camp Pacific.
“One of the things I say to my guys here a lot is, ‘Is this a fact or is this an element of a skewed perspective?’” Shorkey said. “When we can step back, when we remove that filter of our own individual set of circumstances veiling our perspective, we get a whole different view on what the circumstances and the situation may be.”
Overcoming the limits of one’s own viewpoint is something Shorkey had to learn first-hand. Shorkey was hired as an international expert to do advertising work for Coca-Cola (Nasdaq:KO) in Russia. The job required him to establish business relationships in a new country, where it might have been easy for him to succumb to his own preconceived notions about the culture and people.
Instead, he had to be sure that his personal perspective wasn’t clouding his judgment. Without an understanding of his audience’s perspective, he could have wasted time and money creating advertising that didn’t connect with viewers. He had to create a campaign that appealed to a broad Russian audience rather than his own sensibilities.
With the insight and experience of his Russian colleagues, Shorkey and a group of expatriate North Americans worked to better understand Russian culture. This would allow them to create a marketing campaign that would hit a chord with their audience. His multi-perspective team developed the idea of creating an ad campaign touching on old Russian fairy tales and folklore, starting with the story The Firebird.
Shorkey understood both the strengths and limits of his single perspective. He recognized that additional ideas from his North American team could add a different twist to the original concept, making the Russian advertisement unique. His team achieved this by creating a modern version of The Firebird in a mode like that of Baz Luhrmann’s hyper-stylized 1996 film adaptation of Romeo and Juliet.
Perspective is simply a way of looking at a problem, Shorkey said. With more points of view and input, it is possible to gain a more complete picture of the challenge and the potential solutions. Understanding where your perspective falls short is essential to understanding both people and problems whether it’s in advertising, operations or workplace relations, he added.
“Use the same eyes but change where you’re looking at things from – even that can help.”
On creating change | “There’s opposition to almost every form of progressive thinking, because it’s different,” Shorkey said. “There’s going to be opposition to just about anything that’s different because it’s different.”•
