Summary Notes on Perspective, Field of View, and Stance

"Is this about broadening your field of view? Or is it about raising your stance?"

"If your stance gets higher, doesn't your field of view automatically widen too?"

Since questions like these never stopped, I consulted with my senior from consulting days, professors from my MBA program, and various business leaders.

This is a compilation of those notes for my own reference.

Number of Perspectives: How well you can evaluate and judge with balance

• "Perspectives" refer to the number and balance of viewpoints used when evaluating or judging a subject. Sales, profit margins, customer satisfaction, operational efficiency, risk, brand, regulations, talent development. People who can make decisions, evaluations, or comments by comprehensively considering all these factors are what we call people with "many perspectives."
• Having many perspectives allows you to act with excellent balance. You can navigate situations without causing friction, distinguish between short-, medium-, and long-term effects when considering the same initiative, and manage multiple priorities simultaneously.

Breadth of Field of View: How much beyond yourself you can perceive

• "Field of View" refers to the breadth of the range you perceive as relevant. Are you looking only at your own tasks, or also at the flow within your team, or even including neighboring departments and suppliers? The wider your scope, the more accurately you can identify root causes and impacts of problems.
• For example, suppose you are a sales representative at a system development company. When performance isn't improving, the conversation might become "Sales aren't growing because our win rate is low," leading to training for sales staff. But if the actual cause is "Engineers' delivery speed," then increasing the win rate is futile. A narrow field of view leads to mistakes like this.

↓ In cases like this:

No matter how hard you try to improve sales win rates through training, you end up like this ↓

• People with a wide field of view, who consider not just their own team but other teams and departments, can correctly define the problem: "Looking at the entire process until system delivery, the bottleneck is clearly the engineering team."

Height of Stance: From what level of position you think

• "Stance" refers to the height of the position from which you place your thinking. If you think only from the standpoint of an individual contributor, your stance is low. If you can think from the standpoint of a department, the whole company, the industry, or society, your stance is high.
• Even a newcomer can have a high stance if they ask, "How does this task connect to the company's customer value?" or "Given industry trends, our strength is X, so shouldn't we do Y now?" Conversely, even an executive has a low stance if they only look at their own department's numbers.

The 8 Types of Interesting Characters

While slightly exaggerated, people I've met can be categorized into these 8 types based on Perspectives, Field of View, and Stance.

• ① The Newcomer in the Well (Low Stance × Narrow FoV × Few Perspectives): Their thinking stays at "my own tasks." They only see their desk and immediate tasks. Their judgment criterion is "Did I do exactly as told?" They can fill out formats correctly and meet deadlines, but lack purpose awareness like "Who uses this document and why?" They are diligent, but somewhat frog-in-the-well.
• ② The High-Ideals Only Person (High Stance × Narrow FoV × Few Perspectives): They talk about the whole company or social contribution, but their perceived range is limited and criteria simple. They say "Innovation is key!" or "Customer-centric!" but can't answer specific questions about which processes to change or metrics to use. Good at waving flags but blind to reality, so efforts spin in vain. Still, having a high stance is a good start.
• ③ The Niche Artisan (Low Stance × Narrow FoV × Many Perspectives): Stance is limited to their own domain, FoV is narrow, but they have rich perspectives within that small world. They constantly improve quality, efficiency, safety, and customer reception within their scope. Local optimization is artisanal. However, they miss cross-departmental collaboration and overall customer experience, so improvements don't ripple across the organization.
• ④ The Domain Expert (High Stance × Narrow FoV × Many Perspectives): An evolved version of the Niche Artisan. They think at management/industry levels (high stance) but focus only on their specialty (narrow FoV), yet have deep perspectives there. They analyze financials, customer trends, competitors, regulations, and tech trends deeply within their niche. They struggle with adjacent fields or new businesses requiring horizontal connections. Some intentionally choose this role; it's a valid career model. It looks cool.
• ⑤ The Nosy Watcher (Low Stance × Wide FoV × Few Perspectives): Contradictory—nosy but passive. Stance is low (self/team), but Antenna range is wide (who is stuck, where delays occur, other depts). But few perspectives mean simple criteria like "fast/slow" or "in trouble/not." Solutions are superficial like "Everyone work harder!" or "Hire more people!"
• ⑥ The Brilliant Psychopath (High Stance × Wide FoV × Few Perspectives): Can see the whole company/industry, sales, competitors, markets. But perspectives are biased, e.g., judging only by "short-term numbers." Results happen, but ignoring customer satisfaction, employee happiness, or brand value risks destroying the company long-term. Dangerous type.
• ⑦ The Considerate Supporter (Low Stance × Wide FoV × Many Perspectives): Stance is self/team, but FoV extends inside/outside team, and they hold multiple perspectives. They grasp progress, quality, customer reaction, member load simultaneously. Quick to rearrange schedules or fix documents. Reliable right-hand person for pre-emptive coordination, but struggles to connect with overall strategy or long-term direction.
• ⑧ Superman (High Stance × Wide FoV × Many Perspectives): Stance at management/society level, FoV covers site-to-industry, perspectives switch among finance, customer, employee, risk, brand. Ideal form. Caveat: Because they can do everything, they tend to micromanage details. This hinders team growth and organizational scaling. Their challenge is delegation and systemization.

How to Increase Perspectives: Thoroughly Copy Great Minds and CEOs

• First, read books. Each book stocks the author's perspective in your brain. Since personal experience is limited, thoroughly copy perspectives from historical figures and famous CEOs. I take reading notes filling out maps like this:

• Second, find a strict boss and get harsh feedback. Or customers. Then when creating materials, you can self-check: "What would Boss A point out?" "What would Ironman B ask?" "What would that tough client criticize?" The number of strict mentors and critiques received equals your number of perspectives.

How to Widen Field of View: Verbalize One Step Before and After

• Write down "what happens, who moves based on what metrics" in the step immediately before and after yours. If sales aren't growing, look at product development (before) and customer success (after), picking up impacts of spec changes or handover quality. Reading The Goal helps visualize this. The manga version is fine too; I started there.

How to Raise Stance: Think from Two Levels Up

• To raise stance, I learned from a senior: "Stand in the shoes of two levels above." One level up is too close (small change); three levels up is too far (unrealistic). If you're staff, think as manager; if manager, think as director; if director, think as executive. This two-step jump is the right distance.
• Method 1: Ask "What does my boss want to report to their boss?" Prepare proactively what your manager wants to tell the director, or what the director wants to appeal to executives. Being useful follows naturally.
• Method 2: Read minutes of meetings held by senior leaders. See what discussions, metrics, and issues are prioritized. Understand concretely what stance upper management takes and feel the real connection of your work to the big picture.
• Method 3: Talk directly to bosses two levels up. Surprisingly, senior leaders often want ground-level voices. Being approached by "subordinate's subordinate" is often welcomed. Use lunch or elevator moments to ask what they are thinking.

Seems doable, right?

But do people around you actually do it?

Rarely.

So trying it creates opportunities.

I run a membership on note.com with over 280 articles summarizing such practical wisdom, accessible for 500 yen/month.

For one coin, you can learn to:

• Deliver results efficiently at work
• Choose your career freely (promotion, job change, side hustle, entrepreneurship)
• Use generative AI properly in practice
• Gradually strengthen structuring and mental stamina

With over 2,900 subscribers, I must be writing something decent... Please check it out if interested.

Motoyama's Room of Thinking and Trying