Shifting your focus as a leader

If you are reading this, please stop, sit, lie down or whatever you are doing for a moment. Right now!

Close your eyes for a moment, count to 5 and open them again. And now look around you. Look around as if you are seeing your surroundings for the first time. Like a child who sees everything without judgment, almost like a researcher exploring his work. And say to yourself as you do so, "Nothing is as it seems."

The clever Henry Matisse once said, " You must not forget to see the world through the eyes of a child."

What did he mean by that? It is almost breathtaking what children's eyes see and what we adults have forgotten to see. Children are full of courage, curiosity and tolerance - qualities that are often lost to us as we grow older. For children, life is a pure adventure playground. While we look forward to the next Sunday so that we can finally sleep in, it can't be soon enough for them to go on a voyage of discovery. Everything new arouses their curiosity, they want to climb the highest obstacles and preferably play for hours.

Maybe you're wondering what this has to do with your professional success? Quite a lot, to be honest. As you get older, your childlike composure gets lost. Commitments, planning and KPI's lead. We accept limits without trying to overcome them. Of course, life makes us wiser and we develop some fears for a reason.

But sometimes it doesn't hurt to look at life from a child's perspective. What we can learn from them has nothing to do with knowledge. It's their way of living life from which we can learn a lot, not only for ourselves, but also for our business.

When was the last time you looked at something from a different perspective?