Can YOU understand someone else’s worldview?

Think of someone you know who is good at understanding another person’s worldview. That means they can let go of their understanding of how the world works and really delve deeply into someone else’s deep understanding of how something works. To really do this well requires a willingness to suspend one’s own beliefs. How? By understanding how beliefs work and how we process information at different levels of understanding.

Once we are down at the belief level, a specific set of rules is activated. Beliefs are not necessarily logical, but we will act as though they are. This means that using facts or logic will not shift a person’s beliefs. Why not? Well it’s because of two other processes that keep beliefs in place, distortion and deletion.

• The Merriam-Webster Dictionary describes distortion as the act of twisting or altering something out of its true, natural, or original state: the act of distorting.

• Deletion is the process of leaving out information or facts that do not fit our beliefs. It can be more conscious, by actively avoiding sources of information that do not support our beliefs, or unconscious, by ignoring what does not fit. These are not necessarily conscious processes.

Does that mean that beliefs do not change? No, they can erode over time, slowly chipped away, or they can be changed by an event so powerful that it shakes one’s very core.

Another way that beliefs can change is when someone has a change of identity. Why? Well identity, who we are or think we are, is a higher-level process than beliefs—it occurs at a higher logical level. So, let’s say someone who had been an avowed atheist has an experience that causes them to become a Christian; their beliefs will undergo a cataclysmic shift. The opposite would also be true.

Beliefs also can change when you want to achieve something important. Such a major shift will often require a new set of beliefs to make it possible. Think of Roger Banister breaking the four-minute mile. He believed it was possible and trained to do what others considered impossible. Once he did it, others followed suit.

Here in America we can see how this phenomenon of beliefs is playing out in our politics. Think then about how important the ability to understand someone else’s worldview is. I chuckle because the process of creating this deep level of understanding does not make for exciting news coverage and might require that some of our interviewers develop the ability to let go of or suspend their own cherished beliefs.

Want to try this for yourself? You can shift perceptual positions using one of my favorite tools, a process called the Perceptual Positions Exercise. It describes how to create different perceptual positions. In addition to three primary perceptual positions, self, observer and we, I often add a fourth, other. Here’s how they work:

• Self: used when considering a situation from your point of view; looking at it from your own eyes, values and personal history; feeling it fully.

• Other: used when considering a situation as if you are the other person; looking at it through his or her eyes and adopting that person’s physiology, values and history as far as you are informed.

• Observer: used when considering a situation from a neutral, objective point of view; seeing yourself and the others involved.

• We: used for drawing the whole picture with the new information you now have.

This process can be adapted for many uses and is included in some way in many NLP processes.