True or False: "Perception is Reality"

The old saying goes “Perception is Reality” but is this really true?  Can we really allow someone’s perception to have the same weight as factual information?  In my career, I have heard this saying numerous times and sometimes it was directed at me.  I will be the first to tell you I am not perfect and I do make mistakes, but who doesn’t make mistakes?  This blog isn’t about who makes mistakes, it’s about someone’s perception of a situation and assuming that a mistake was made.

 If I worked in your office and you heard me talking to someone and I said, “I love watching dog fights!”  A simple phrase that is clear and easy to understand.  You may take that phrase and assume that I like watching dogs fight.  This could turn out to be a serious misunderstanding, due to the perception of a single phrase.  Now if I told you that the History Channel has a show called “Dogfights” and it’s about fighter jets in combat, you may not have a problem with my earlier phrase.  But this type of situation happens all too often, and it can destroy relationships, careers, and working environments.

My example above is very simple and it’s easy to see how people can get the wrong impression and form their own perception of that phrase.  Now let’s make the phrase a little more complex, “I love watching dog fights!  It’s amazing to see the carnage that is left over from a fight like that.  I wonder how some of those people live with themselves knowing the consequences of their actions?” Instead of a simple phrase you have an entire statement that may seem to verify that I am in fact watching dogs fight.  Not only did I mention carnage and dog fights, but I mention that potentially unethical people are involved.  Now the puzzle pieces are in place for you to assume, yes this person watches dog fight and kill each other. 

The reason for this getting more complex is that verifiers have been said, and when questioned about my statement it may be harder to show that isn’t want I meant.  Now I have three parts of a story I have to correct and it may seem I am just covering myself from getting in trouble.  The perception is there and that statement is now assumed to be true, even if it’s not.

The same applies for non-verbal actions.  If I work in your office and the only thing you ever see me do is go to the coffee machine, talk to people in the halls, and go home, you may assume I do nothing for the company.  So your perception is that I am dead weight to the company and you have no clue what I do and why I work there.  What is interesting about non-verbal assumptions is that the entire perception is built off of non-verbal interactions.  If you never asked me what I do, how can you say/assume I do nothing?  Just because I talk to people in the hall, doesn’t mean I am never working.  Just to preface this blog, none of these things have actually happened to me in my current job (trying to manage those perceptions for those who I work with that may read this).

But because a person’s perception is their reality, they assume they are correct and often times communicate that to others without verifying the facts.  Whatever happened to innocent until PROVEN guilty?  In today’s workplace, people have become fixated on making more money and stepping on whomever they can to get to the top. If that means taking a perception about someone and playing that against them, that is perfectly okay.  Because we work in a world where we value people’s opinions and we want people to be heard.  The Golden Rule was to treat people how you wanted to be treated, and now the Platinum Rule is to treat others the way they want to be treated.  In my opinion, I think we have taken that Platinum Rule too far! 

The reason I say the Platinum Rule has gone too far is that once a complaint is made, someone has to follow up on the complaint.  Not because it’s a legitimate complaint, but because someone said something and it must be looked into regardless of the ridiculousness.  What often happens, in my management experience, even if the complaint is a simple misunderstanding, that person can never defend themselves because it is someone else’s perception.  Even if facts are presented, that person’s perception is how they feel and you must always agree with a person’s feelings, because that is how they want to be treated.  No one wants to be told how to feel.  But haven’t we contradicted the Platinum Rule?  Now the accused isn’t being treated the way they want to be treated when they are innocent.

A simple misunderstanding and you can be called into an office and approached on something you knew nothing about, but someone perceived that it happened.  Now you may face the fact that a simple misunderstanding has now caused your supervisor and team to lose trust in you, all because someone didn’t ask you to clarify a situation.  So now your personal perception of your supervisor and team is that you can never say anything in front of them that may be questioned, thus relationships are lost and the work environment suffers.  Sometime people just end up leaving the company because it doesn’t matter how far off the perception was, to that one individual it is reality.

So I ask myself, where did the time go when people respected people and negative perceptions were address between with one another?  When did perceptions begin to hold more weight than facts?  When did we allow people’s opinions rule the workplace?  Most of all, when did the workplace get so soft that respecting people feelings was more important than doing what is right?  What I mean by doing what is right, is telling someone that what they think or feel may be wrong because reason 1, 2, 3.

Experts wonder why people change jobs so often, and most of the time it’s due to pay and career opportunity.  But in my opinion, it’s become more about the people and perceptions of a workplace.  Sometimes people feel like their work isn’t valued enough, sometimes people feel someone has it out for them, or sometimes people feel they are not getting the opportunities others are getting.  And most of the time those perceptions aren’t true, but that is how we feel and no one can tell us otherwise.  But sometimes those perceptions are true and in fact they are our reality, who is to say that it’s not?  In the end only God knows, and the race we thought we had with others really only turns out to be a race against ourselves.

Glory always to the Lord!