The Creativity Suite. Episode 162: Alia perspecta
Interview with Fathi Tlatli, President – Global Sector Auto-Mobility at DHL Customer Solutions & Innovation.
“I want to really think about what I am doing.”
That was Fathi Tlatli’s answer to the question when I asked him how he – as the President – Global Sector Auto-Mobility at DHL Customer Solutions & Innovation – still took the time to also teach young people in universities.
As the president for an important sector at one of the largest companies in the world (DHL has 600,000 employees) with thought leadership and innovation, he gets to test his ideas in the “real world”. But as a teacher at university, he gets to test out new ideas and insights around new trends on young minds that can freely question them.
In the end, the two activities help him to leverage trends.
He told me: “Teaching at university forces me to update my knowledge. When you teach, you have to articulate your knowledge and opinions”.
They say “teaching is a great way to learn”, but I guess we can also say that “teaching is a great way to keep your own thinking fresh”.
But the most powerful aspect of jumping between the “real world” and the “academic world” is that it lets Fathi look at trends from two very different perspectives. And getting multiple perspectives is something that Fathi believes strongly in.
As an expert in Time management, he also likes to toggle between strategic aspect of time (long term thinking) and the tactical aspect of time (short term thinking).
And as a person who was born to a Tunisian father and Belgian mother, Fathi was brought up in a world where there were always multiple perspectives on how to do things. (Something that all third culture kids will know about).
He describes how that background “activated a mental switch” in his brain that emphasized the insight that there are always other points of views.
Fathi; “Some people are nervous when they have to go beyond their knowledge, but I am curious about the (for me) unknown”.
(Or perhaps we should call it the “yet not known”).
This ability to take in multiple points of views from other people or other perspectives is something that needs a name.
Let’s call it: “Alia perspecta” which is Latin for “the other points of views”.
Here is how to apply “Alia perspecta”:
When you are faced with a problem, how many other perspectives on this problem can you think of?
Having problems coming with enough different perspectives?
A very effective use of AI tools such as ChatGPT or Claude.
Take your problem and ask your favourite AI tool to give you 15 – or why not – or 30 or 45 – alternative stakeholders to that problem and to then play the role of each of those stakeholders to give you their perspectives.
Most people are very stuck in their own point of view that we find it hard to even imagine 15, 30 or 45 different perspectives – let alone take those perspectives.
But for an AI tool, it takes only a couple of seconds.
Seeing the world from as many different perspectives as possible is not just an effective way to find fresh views on a problem. It is also an effective way of gaining empathy towards other people’s point of view. Two crucial things if you want to be able to have a fresh and flexible mind.
Try it the next time you are faced with a challenge. Try maximizing the different perspectives you can have on it.
27
Feb