The Bird and the Fish Argument

This is a story that I made up several years ago to illustrate a couple of very interesting insights when people tend to disagree.

Once a bird and a fish got into a big argument with a lot of yelling and screaming – neither could see the other point of view.  They were arguing about a boat.  The bird tells the fish, “I see a colorful bowl floating in the water.” The fish goes, “What is water and I see no colors, I just see a darkish oval rock floating above me”.

A boat to the fish and the bird were two completely different objects and each stuck to their guns as to what is was.  They never could agree and went their separate ways.

The only way for them to agree and cooperate was for the bird to go under water and for the fish to jump out of the water and take a look at the boat. The interesting aspect is both were technically correct as to how they described the boat, however, from their limited perspectives.  Even though what they described was accurate, it was an incomplete description.

We see this many times when two people or several people in a group disagree about something.  The way we can get them to see the bigger picture and gain a better perspective is to have them to step into the others shoes or view the situation from different angles.

I find that the complete answer is usually and combination of perspectives and not limited to any one perspective.

Up Next: "I want to be Happy, but my Ego wants to be Right!"