Sometimes the view changes when you stop looking straight ahead.
In this Quickie, I'm thinking about perspective, curiosity, and what happens when we're willing to look through a different window—or maybe even fall through the looking glass. The answer you're searching for might already be there. You may just need to change where you're standing
[00:00:04] If you are an irrigation professional, old or new, who designs, installs, or maintains high-end residential, commercial, or municipal properties, and you want to use technology to improve your business, to get a leg up on your competition, even if you're an old-school irrigator from the days of hydraulic systems, this show is for you. Hey, it's your friend Andy, The Sprinkler Nerd, and welcome to The Sprinkler Nerd Show.
[00:00:33] I have a question for you today, and that is, Through Whose Looking Glass Are You Looking? I'll say it again. Through Whose Looking Glass Are You Looking? And yeah, that does have an Alice in Wonderland riff to it, and no, this is not going to be an Alice in Wonderland episode.
[00:00:58] I promise you, there will be no rabbits, no tea parties, and hopefully no irrigation contractors falling down a hole chasing answers. Although, now that I say that, that actually sounds pretty accurate, because maybe I'm the one falling down the rabbit hole, because I think we spend, I know I spend a lot of time believing that what we see is reality, but maybe it's just not our reality. Let's take a sprinkler.
[00:01:27] Something simple. Something simple. Just the basic sprinkler. To a homeowner, it might be something that keeps the grass green. To an irrigation contractor, it's a service call. To a distributor, it's an SKU. To a manufacturer, it's a product line. To a water manager, it might be a 1.5 gallon per minute emission device.
[00:01:55] To the person paying the water bill, it's money. But it's the same sprinkler. But it could have completely different interpretations. It could be a completely different sprinkler to each person. And I think this happens all the time, everywhere.
[00:02:18] And it's something I'm trying to remind myself of, especially when it relates to being right or being correct, or actually maybe trying to find understanding. You know, who are you with? What are you talking about? How might they be thinking about this sprinkler? And how are you thinking about this sprinkler? It's the same exact sprinkler, but you can come to it from a completely different approach.
[00:02:42] So when we look at a problem through our own little lens or our own little window, oftentimes it can be easy to assume everyone else must be seeing the same thing. Is irrigation in Boston the same as irrigation in Tampa and the same in Phoenix and Seattle? Well, it's not. But sometimes it's easy to think that the entire industry sees what we see, and it must be the same.
[00:03:09] And there are some over-arching and parallels and similarities, but it's typically not the same. And I've been thinking about this a lot because the more people I talk with and talk to in this industry, the more I realize that everybody is just operating from a completely different looking glass. Take a golf course superintendent on a golf course who sees water different than the irrigation manufacturer.
[00:03:36] A technician standing in a valve box sees something different than the person sitting in the corporate office. And the person designing the software sees something different than the person driving around at six in the morning trying to figure out why the grass is brown. And none of them are necessarily wrong. They're just having a different experience and standing somewhere different.
[00:04:03] And I think curiosity begins when you become willing to walk around on the other side. It might be like, instead of saying, how could they possibly think that? Perhaps another way to see things or ask that question might be, what are they seeing that I'm not?
[00:04:28] And that question sort of changes the perspective on things. What are they seeing that I'm not? Maybe the contractor who doesn't want a new piece of technology isn't resistant to technology. Maybe he or she is just thinking about who has to support it at 7 p.m. on a Friday night. How many times have I heard that from contractors that often they just don't want the risk?
[00:04:58] They don't want something new to not work correctly at 7 or 8 or 9 or 10 p.m. on a Friday, Saturday, or Sunday night because it's just going to be a callback. And you know what? Sometimes that's not worth the squeeze. Maybe the superintendent who still takes those manual moisture readings isn't old school at all. Maybe he just trusts the damn data in his hands because he's done this a thousand times and he knows exactly what he's looking at.
[00:05:25] And so it's just trust in that that has taught him something that modern dashboards haven't done yet. Maybe the manufacturer isn't ignoring what could be a seemingly obvious opportunity. Maybe they're looking through the lens of supporting hundreds of thousands of existing customers.
[00:05:48] What happens if brand X put 100,000 soil moisture sensors out in the field and 10% of them had a question? They can't support 10,000 questions. So that might be their lens. They know there's a possibility. They know this is coming, but they're not ready for all of the questions. And maybe you are right too.
[00:06:13] Maybe you can see something from where you're standing that they can't see yet. And that is, to me, that's super interesting. That part right there, you seeing something that maybe no one else can see yet is super interesting. You don't necessarily have to change your perspective just because someone else can't see it. You just have to understand that that is a perspective. And you are allowed to have a perspective. And you should.
[00:06:43] And you are likely right in your perspective. It just might not fit the lens that someone else is looking through. Maybe your looking glass isn't the looking glass. It's just one of them. Maybe there isn't a looking glass. Maybe there's hundreds of looking glasses or dozens or at least more than one of them.
[00:07:11] And I wonder how many arguments in industry or bad products or bad business decisions or even, for that matter, bad relationships happen just because two people are looking at the exact same thing from opposite sides and both believe they have the complete picture. I think this happens a lot. It's just a sprinkler.
[00:07:40] It's just a Rain Bird 5000 and a Hunter PGP to use the old standbys. It's just a sprinkler. But it can mean 10 different things to 10 different people.
[00:07:52] So maybe this week or this weekend, when something doesn't make sense to you, when somebody makes a decision you don't understand, when a customer says something that seems perhaps ridiculous, when your boss or your employee or your supplier, or even for many of you who have a spouse or a kid or a friend, when they see something completely different than you.
[00:08:21] Before deciding that they're wrong, ask yourself one question. Through whose looking glass am I looking? Am I looking at this through my looking glass? Can I look at it through their looking glass? What is their looking glass? What makes them think and believe what they're saying? How can I see it through their looking glass?
[00:08:50] And how cool would it be if you could magically just put on some glasses and go, oh, yeah, I totally understand why you would think this. That's not how I was seeing it at all. So that's my opportunity for you for this episode. Through whose looking glass am I looking? And as I think about that, closing this out, there might even be a better one.
[00:09:19] What does their looking glass look like? What does this sprinkler look like through their looking glass? So that's what I have this week, my friends. Through whose looking glass are you looking? And what does a sprinkler look like through their looking glass? Stay curious, my friends. I'll see you next time on another episode of Curiosity.