One of the most powerful tools you have at your disposal when dealing with intractable situations (second probably only to forgiveness) is that of admitting for the possibility that you might be wrong.

You have – by design – a limited perspective. No matter how you cut it, you will always only see a slice of the total picture. Making room for the fact that your perspective is always limited and that it may be (God forbid!) flawed on occasion can go a long way to making you more approachable.

Approachability follows on the heels of vulnerability. People are often afraid to be vulnerable because they feel they will be run over by others. They are wed to the idea that vulnerability compromises authority.

While that may be the case in the African grasslands or the Amazonian jungle, in my experience quite the opposite proves to be true when it comes to people. Vulnerability enhances authority. Admitting to others that you may not see the whole picture or allowing for the possibility in your own mind that you may not opens you more fully and more apparently to the perspectives of those around you.

Every intractable problem is held in place by poor perspective management. The key to unlocking any situation, no matter how tangled, is always a matter of bringing the right perspectives to bear on it.