The movie Dead Poets Society is great for so many reasons, not the least of which is that it stars the incomparable Robin Williams as high school literature teacher John Keating. In one scene, Keating climbs atop his desk to demonstrate a simple but profound idea: changing your perspective can change how you see the world. It’s a modest act of disruption, one that interrupts the ordinary, the routine, and opens the mind to possibilities that may otherwise be overlooked.
In leadership, this shift in perspective is crucial for sparking innovation and creative solutions. It’s so easy to get caught up in familiar patterns of thinking—even when they’re not yielding the results we want. Familiarity is safe. The variables are known. And we, as humans, seek out that safety instinctively.
But, as we often say at Leadership Circle, “There’s no great way to be safe and no safe way to be great.” Transformation rarely comes from staying the course. It comes from seeing things differently, from deliberately changing how we view the world, the challenges we face, and the circumstances that surround us.
What if, in your next meeting, you paused and asked a question from a completely new angle? What if you considered not just the solution to a problem, but how that problem could actually be an opportunity for growth? Innovation doesn’t always demand sweeping changes or massive overhauls. Sometimes, all it takes is standing on the metaphorical desk—looking at things in a slightly different way—and suddenly, new ideas emerge, unburdened by the limits of traditional thinking.
I encourage you to experiment with this shift. In your team discussions, in your strategy sessions, in the everyday moments of decision-making—pause and ask, “What am I not seeing? How can I look at what I am seeing differently?” That small change could be the spark that ignites something new, something groundbreaking, something great.
-Bill Adams, Co-Founder & CEO
