Perceptions are not reality
This morning, I came to the office with a colleague of mine, as I had left my vehicle in the office last evening. As we approached our parking lot, I saw that my vehicle was parked haphazardly and it was blocking the way to the parking area. At that time when I parked there were so many vehicles, so I just had to park like that. This morning for anyone looking at it, it looked like the person who parked was an idiot and lacked any sense at all.
I noticed it, got down from my friend’s vehicle and moved my vehicle a little so it was no more a disturbance to others. There was another person who was trying to park and he saw me doing this and said “Thank you”, as he thought that it was someone else’s vehicle and I am trying to help him. I accepted the thanks and just thought about the whole incident.
Now in the mind of the person who was trying to park the vehicle, I would look like a good socially aware person, but at the same time my colleague would have felt how badly I had parked my vehicle, as he knew it was my vehicle. The same way, many times we build perception about another person with one incident and we carry the same impression about that person. In this incident it was fine that this person had a positive opinion about me, but there may be many situations in our life where we could have misjudged some people based on an incident and built our perception about the individual, based on that incident and would have taken a lot of decisions based on that, which might have been wrong.
Typically in our industry, which involves a lot of team work and relationship being the most important factor for the success of the team, these kind of perception building will lead to lot of trouble and ultimately lead to the failure of our project. So let’s give a thought before we create any perception about any individual, around us. Many times, what we see and what we hear may mislead us, so it is wise to get to the details.
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Venky is a delivery manager at MindTree Limited, having interests in team building, event management, employee engagement and training. An avid blogger too. “Riding the wave” best describes his approach towards life. Visit his website www.venkyb.com.
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Very nice example. Anyone who is managing a team has to read this article of yours!!
Perceptions are real but can never give you reality in totality.We know only five senses which create perception for us. But, there are many more faculties such as reason, intuition etc which bring truth to us.
Perception is a problem for all of us – even scientists. There’s a growing body of work that suggests it has been causing all sorts of problems, not just with teams, eg.;
http://www.freewebs.com/4dmegauniverse/primerealityinterface.htm
Perceptions are so ‘real’ they have been treated as reality by scientists since the year dot.
“Observation always results in subjective reality outcome, which is distinct from the material physical reality that is under investigation.”
Hi Venky,
You are right so much with your post. Human reality is only subjective. When we build an interface it’s so important to focus on objective data. In my point of view, the only way to do that is to measure regularely users behavior through eye, brain, motor and emotion tracking.
Have a nice week.
Marc
I have to admit that the title as well as the core of your article is of a great complication due to the diverse perceptions to what perception is.
Perception that is based on some [unrevealed but truthful] experiences is reality. Reality is Truth. Decision taken upon reality or truth is never misleading neither to other people nor oneself. On the contrary, it becomes the torch that can enlighten dedicated people’s road towards Goodness: Human cause and consciousness in the world of business.
Perception that is based on general misleading information remains a perception. When perception is given the chance to be elaborated –i.e. research, experience and living– it stops to be perception to become reality.
We are living amid a diverse culture where concept of perception could mean “put your feet in to my shoes and see”. My “experienced” shoes would unveil a whole different vision of a world and people you are living in and with.
Only as example: Arab mindset is generally designed for people of rejection, hatred and backwardness that are all acquired in Arab World. An Arabic speaking person born and raised in Arab world is generally perceived by western people as a typical Arab-minded person before knowing him/her. The behavior of the perceiver becomes arrogant and superior. Arrogance –that is not acceptable in any form under any circumstance– turns to be offensive due to its unfairness.
After 11/09, the World started to inquire about Islam. That remains a perception. Inquiring about Islamic ideology/living/thought is reality.
Finally, perception that could launch at others the curiosity to genuinely know more is constructive. In that case Perception could be a solid base for knowledge. The other way i.e. just Perception with no knowledge or chance to experience remains a stubborn attitude against self development.
Just “Perception” –based on ignorance, deep misunderstanding and inexperience– is maybe the origin of the world madness, chaos and pain. Very nice and useful topic.
Living in a controversial and complicated region i.e. Middle East/Arab World, I would suggest to start a serial of truthful experienced stories that could either help into “affirming” a certain perception (to become a reality) or help in to changing it (to remain or become perception).What do you think?
“Love is a action verb,” wrote Holly Cox. From Lebanon, I sen you my love:)
Norma