Everyone Needs a Perspective Changer

Have you ever witnessed your life’s work being completely disrupted? In these existential times of stress and chaos, it is easy to miss seeing what matters most to you, even when it’s right in front of you.

You’re not alone. Most of us need someone else to help us see it. As my friend Tony Chatman says, “You can’t read the label when you’re inside the jar.”

That’s why I loved the title I received for my work with the reframe conference last week. They even put it on my chair: Perspective Changer.

Four days at Reframe

Reframe is a conference for accountants and bookkeepers, built to help them grow as business leaders and advisors. These are leaders who aren’t simply looking to stay sharp. These are leaders who are eager to completely transform how they’re serving clients.

AI is taking over bookkeeping functions. Many leaders in this situation start catastrophizing. This room didn’t. They are taking on the disruption in their field boldly.

I helped facilitate the conversation at my table, table 14. People leaned in. They shared ideas. They tried clarifying their thoughts and questions. I grew up with an accountant so I’ve experienced seeing the world through numbers. Seeing clear binaries like right or wrong, credit or debit.

But when these leaders saw a client’s numbers, they saw more than income and expenses. They had insight into what their clients value. Sometimes they could see it more clearly than the client can. The leaders around that table had expertise that can help their clients in ways those clients don’t realize yet. They can be perspective changers.

Unfortunately, in trying to share that expertise with clients, they kept using their own dialect as tax preparers or record keepers. They had a window into what clients hope for and desire, but they tried talking to the client in terms of proactive bookkeeping and clean financials and predictable payroll service.

All things that would help clients. But in a language that was foreign to their clients. Hairdressers and lawyers and medical professionals and florists were wanting less stress, more control, fewer money surprises. They didn’t see how cleaning up a chart of accounts could be a good use of their time.

Rather than get frustrated with their clients, or speaking louder and slower, these leaders spent four days working on their critical conversations. They learned how communication works. And they practiced frameworks and phrases to help them speak more clearly to the people they served. In wanting to become perspective changers, they did the hard work of subjecting themselves to their own perspectives changing.

To everyone who attended reframe – especially those who sat at Table 14 – thank you for leaning in. I left feeling fulfilled. And with a renewed commitment to helping more leaders communicate their passion and expertise in ways people can understand.

What a perspective changer does

I once advised a tech CEO who wanted to grow revenue to a certain number of millions of dollars. He had a clear target. When asked why that number, he first answered with growth and projections and ROI. Weren’t CEOs supposed to think bigger was better? Having a clear number was a thing a CEO should say.

He didn’t really seem sold on the number. So with follow up questions, I listened for more than his first answer. It wasn’t that the number was good or bad. It was that the CEO didn’t seem to be clear on how it connected with his own motivations and values. Quickly he realized that he chose a bigger revenue target because he thought he was supposed to.

It turned out he didn’t want the millions for the dollars. He really wanted more free time. And for his staff to think for themselves instead of needing him to make all the decisions. He assumed more money would make those things happen.

I didn’t hand him that answer. It was his all along. He needed someone else to help him see it. Someone he could trust, who wasn’t gunning for his job or adding to his own inner critic’s judgmentalism.

That’s what a perspective changer does. They don’t tell you what matters. They help you see what already matters to you. And even the best perspective changers need one in their corner. That’s why I have coaches of my own.

AI can read a balance sheet. It can track every transaction and flag every trend. What it can’t do is sit across from you and notice that your first answer is the one you think you’re supposed to give, not necessarily the one that is true.

Who’s your perspective changer?

If you’re an accountant or bookkeeper, you already have your clients’ numbers in front of you. Try this with one client this week. Ask what their number is for. Then listen past the first answer.

If you lead an organization, ask yourself who helps you see what’s most important to you. If the honest answer is “no one,” that’s worth paying attention to.

Want a perspective changer in your corner? Leaders spend so much time focusing on other people’s goals that they are often out of touch with their own hopes and desires. Magnetize 2027 changes that. For just $297, you join a group of people who are committed to articulating their goals – the ones for work but also the ones that surface and are clearly important to them. You start 2027 fresh, and you have a full year of check-ins and support. It’s a light commitment for a high impact. Register before November 24 to get the workbook before Thanksgiving.

Learn more and sign up at: https://concordleadershipgroup.com/magnetize-2027/. Hurry, registration closes November 30.