The Power of a Different Perspective
What Picasso Can Teach Leaders About Problem Solving
A CEO I advise recently shared his executive dashboard with me. The metrics painted what his team saw as a clear crisis: declining user engagement, dropping feature adoption rates, falling customer satisfaction scores. His product team had already lined up the standard responses—feature additions, interface revamps, competitive catch-up plays.
Sifting through digital tea leaves, my mind wandered to something completely different: an old piece of art—Picasso's “Bull's Head”—that held a surprising lesson for this very moment.
The Art of Seeing Differently
In 1942, during the German occupation of Paris, Picasso stood in his studio contemplating a pile of discarded bicycle parts—a seat and handlebars. While Parisians were hiding their bicycles from German patrols, seeing them purely as precious transportation, Picasso saw something else entirely. Those discarded parts became his "Bull's Head" sculpture—a piece so elementally simple that viewers would later swear they'd seen the bull in those bicycle parts all along. They hadn't.
Picture credit: Matthew Perkins, Flickr
From Art to Enterprise
"Some artists turn the sun into a yellow spot," Picasso would later reflect, "while others turn a yellow spot into the sun." Working with technology leaders over the years, I've found this principle particularly relevant to product strategy. The ability to reframe what others see as problems often reveals unexpected opportunities.
The perspective shift is a powerful tool in a leader’s toolkit.
The Power of a Question to Change Everything
"What if high engagement isn't actually your users' goal?" I asked.
That got everyone’s attention. The CEO's expression shifted from confusion to intrigue. The Head of Product stopped mid-sentence in her presentation about retention strategies.
Rewriting the Success Story
Where others saw a failing product, we discovered signs of evolving user mastery. Lower engagement didn't mean dissatisfaction—it meant efficiency. Users weren't abandoning the platform; they were becoming experts at getting what they needed quickly.
This single shift in perspective cascaded through the organization:
From More to Better
Engineering scrapped plans for new features, focusing instead on speed and reliability.
Design began removing elements rather than adding them.
Product metrics shifted from "time spent" to "time saved".
From Features to Outcomes
Sales stopped pitching feature lists and started sharing efficiency gains.
Marketing evolved from "powerful platform" to "faster results".
Customer success celebrated quick task completion instead of feature adoption.
The Hidden Power of Perspective
The transformation wasn't just about changing metrics—it was about aligning the company's definition of success with their customers' true needs. The moment they stopped seeing their software as a destination and started seeing it as a conduit to user success, every decision became clearer.
The Three Elements of Perspective Shift
The power of this approach lies in three critical moves:
See the Invisible Recognize that every "problem" contains hidden opportunities. Declining metrics might signal evolving user behavior rather than product failure.
Bridge the Vision Help others see these new possibilities. Transform "declining engagement" into "increasing efficiency" through clear narrative and evidence.
Choose Your Amplification Consciously decide which aspects of reality to emphasize. Focus on speed and simplicity over engagement and features.
Making the Shift
The next time you face what seems like an obvious problem, pause. Ask yourself:
What if this isn't a problem at all?
What might this look like from a radically different angle?
What if the opposite of my first instinct is true?
Like Picasso with his bull, you might find that what looks like junk from one angle could be a masterpiece from another. In business, as in art, perspective isn't just about what you see—it's about what you choose to make others see.
Asking questions that drive clarity is a highly underrated skill. More on that in other posts.