Following up on my theme around Perception vs Reality, I have presented in my previous posts how I – with my own filters – explain the gap between Perception and Reality, and I have illustrated the gap with one example that just happened in front of my eyes, a typical example of a huge and unfair gap between Perception and Reality.
Did you notice as well? When Perception diverges from Reality between two different people or groups of people, the gap is almost always at the expense of someone, who pays a very, very unfair price for someone else not acknowledging the fact that Perception and Reality are inconsistent, and sometimes not even willing to talk about the gap with the person being judged…
Look at the example of my previous post: the Department Manager made a judgement on the project manager, and a judgement which is obviously not recognized as fair neither by the project manager not by the project sponsor. Yet the Department Manager is not going to make the effort to talk about the gap with anybody, because he is the boss, and knows, as the boss, that he is right. So what is the chance for Peter or John to be listened? What is the chance for Peter or John to explain their own experience and their own vision of the reality? What is the chance for Peter or John to re-establish a fair perception of the facts? None. Simply none. Even though Peter and John, as the most involved actors in the project, know better the reality of the ground than the Department Manager.
So how can we live with these constant and persistent gaps floating around us, without being able to systematically explain to the persons judging others why they might not make a fair judgement? Well, in line with the three root causes of the gap between perception and reality that I analysed in my previous post, I see three qualities that a real leader should have, without which once cannot be called a leader without, too often, exercising unfair judgments on people who do not deserve being judged this way. And before describing these three qualities, I’d like to remind that they will not help eliminating the gap, since the gap is and will always be there. These qualities are about being able to integrate the gap in your own perception, hence better accepting others points of views, and avoiding judging others unfairly. These qualities are about being fair, in full awareness of the gap.
Quality 1: Integrity with oneself
The first dimension of the gap between Perception and Reality comes from the fact that everybody has his or her own filters, hence only sees his or her own perception of the reality. As such, the only way to live fairly with this gap is to constantly remind ourselves that the gap exists, and will always do. This is about making the effort to constantly question our own judgements, and remind ourselves that anyone, including you and I, sees the reality with one’s own filters. In other words, since I have my own filters, I know that they are constantly playing a trick on me, making me see the reality with biases.
As such, I must constantly question what I see, and more importantly, question my analysis and my conclusions to ensure I integrate the filters that I do not see at first. I must try to rotate around the sphere of possible perceptions of any given fact.
Try to remember something that you started to see completely differently after a special event – a painting that you start liking or disliking, a dish that you hated and that becomes your favourite because you have been forced to taste it in a different way, one day… something must have happened to change your own perception of the facts. Yet the facts have not changed much. So why waiting for a special event – often painful – to force you to make the effort? Why not making the continuous effort to think about how you could possibly see the reality in a different way, before you are painfully forced to do it?
Integrity is a about reminding ourselves that what we experience is not The Reality, but one of several perceptions of the reality. Integrity is about our own work on ourselves.
Quality 2: Tolerance in reminding ourselves that others have different filters than ours
The second dimension of the gap between Perception and Reality is about the fact that different people will perceive the reality in different ways, so unlikely in the same way as you or I do.
How to integrate that gap in our own behavior? Simply by being consistent and tolerant in the way we interact with others: not judging others, for being good or for being bad, but by accepting people as they are, remembering that their filters just make the reality look different than ours. And there should not be any reason for thinking that our perception is closer to reality than others, even if the boss is talking. Before exercising any judgment on anyone, before being angry at anyone, being tolerant means to make the effort to question if the judgment we are about to make on the other person is truly fair. Could we have missed something that makes us see the Reality differently than the other person who seems to have such a different view than ours?
It is a fact that we all have immediate reactions and feelings, immediately thinking that “this guy is stupid”, or “I am not even going to listen to that person because I hate the sound of her voice”, or “I know I am going to disagree with her”… and the list could be long. So being tolerant as a real leader means to fight these thoughts, and when they come, rather think: what is the reason why this person might think differently than I do? What drives this person to think his suggestion is a good idea, or her behavior is appropriate? Am I over-reacting? Am I missing something in the picture that makes me interpret the facts differently?
Tolerance is about reminding ourselves that our perception might be different from the others because we are not seeing the same picture, or because we are seeing it from a different angle. Tolerance is about our own work on towards others.
Quality 3: Rigor in persisting to describe facts in a neutral way
The third dimension of the gap between the reality and the way it is described as indeed, we can only talk about the reality with words, which are themselves a representation of the reality rather than the Reality itself.
This dimension is always exacerbated by some political games: people who like to picture what they see as the reality, in a way that will be turned to their advantage, and most likely to the disadvantage of others. These people do not care about the reality; they only care about what the reality means to them, how they can describe the facts in a way that will make them grow, and that will destroy others.
In order not to be a victim of such people, as a leader, I would expect no-one to trust what people tell them without checking the facts with the people directly involved, and no-one to trust the reality described by only one person. As soon as someone talks about someone else in a non-neutral way, or holds another person accountable for a fact (“the project is late because Peter did not complete the analysis properly”; “this issue happened because Jenny forgot to check the impact on this system”…) , I would expect a real leader to have the rigor to (1) ignore any judgement made by a third party on someone else, and (2) check the reality before making his or her own judgment and conclusion. Too often, we see pseudo-leaders surrounding them by what they call their Sherpas, or their “circle of trust and influence”. These pseud-leaders then fully rely on these third parties to interpret the reality that they spy. What if these people have their own political filters and play on destroying others by describing facts in non-neutral ways? What could be the perception of the person relying on these people to see the reality?…
Take the example of my previous post: what if the Department Manager had picked up the phone to ask for the update instead of sending an angry email? Not only he would have saved himself the time to write and send the email, but he would also have avoided time wasted in debates between sponsor and project manager to understand the email; he would have avoided himself being angry at someone for no reason; and he would have had immediate answers to his questions since the project manager knew very well his topic.
Rigor is about ignoring judgments made on people and facts reported in a non-neutral way. Rigor is about taking the time to build one’s own description of the reality in a neutral and non-judgmental way. Rigor is about our own work on the facts.
All in all, since both our brains and our senses are fooling us, these three qualities are fundamental in taking command of ourselves, in not judging others neither for their behaviors nor for who they are, and in establishing healthy communication channels with the people we are interacting with every day, neutrally, for the facts and not for the people behind the facts. It is about seeing the facts as closely as possible to the reality within the chaos of an organization. Professionally, leisurely, and even when being angry after the person who seemed to have taken priority on us when crossing the street. Have you experienced different attitudes from leaders who observe these qualities and from leaders who don’t? What were the differences that you experienced between both? And how did you feel about these differences?
The Process Excellence String of Ariadne 