Rotman Management — Spring 2017

108 / Rotman Management Spring 2017

Nicholas Epley is the John Templeton Keller Professor of Behavioural

Science at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business.

He is the author of Mindwise: How We Understand What Others Think,

Believe, Feel and Want (Borzoi/Alfred A. Knopf, 2014).

were in their circumstances. How would I feel if I were living

in poverty? Would I understand this presentation if I were

one of our clients?

The weakness of this approach is that its effectiveness

relies on our ability to imagine another person’s perspective

accurately. If your belief about the other side’s perspective

is mistaken, carefully considering that perspective will only

magnify the mistake’s consequences. This is particularly

likely in conflict, where members of opposing sides tend to

have inaccurate views about each other. Across many stud-

ies, my colleagues and I have found no clear evidence that

perspective taking helps.

We have found that a much better approach is perspec-

tive getting, which means putting the other person in a po-

sition where they can tell you what they think, openly and

honestly. Companies understand their customers better

when they get their perspective directly through conver-

sation, surveys or face-to-face interaction — not when ex-

ecutives make guesses from the boardroom. And spouses

understand each other when they are willing to share their

thoughts openly and verify that they’ve heard correctly —

not when they walk past each other in silence, thinking they

already understand their spouse perfectly.

In the end, other peoples’ minds will never be an open

book. But in a world of seven billion people — where both

your happiness and your economic success depend on your

relationships with others — it is hard to imagine a more use-

ful ability to work on than understanding people.

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