Perception Vs. Reality

by John R. SedivycloseAuthor: John R. Sedivy Name: John R. Sedivy
Email: john@capecodbranding.com
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Introduction

I was thinking lately about the importance of perception and the relation of perception to reality. According to Wikipedia, perception is “the process of attaining awareness or understanding of sensory of information.” Reality on the other hand is “the state of things as they actually exist.” At first glance, reality appears to be what is real and perception may or may not be real, so reality is the most important of the two. In this article I explain why perception is most important aspect, why it must be managed, and how to improve you skill in doing so.

A Complicated Relationship
I first became aware of this relationship during a semester at The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) Masters of Systems Engineering program, although I have encountered the relationship throughout my life, although was ignorant to it and its importance. Part of the required reading for this course was “The Art Of Systems Architecting” by Mark W. Maier and Eberhardt Rechtin. For those who have not read this book or Rechtin’s work in general I highly recommend it. Although this book is geared towards engineers, systems engineering is a strange in that it is technical, however applied to management and life in general.

Prior to proceeding with this discussion I ask you to consider the following modified diagram which is based on Rechtin’s work in “The Art Of Systems Architecting”:

Figure 1. Perception Vs. Reality

When managing project I was always taught the importance of cost, schedule, technical performance, and risk. I will define each below as used in the context of this article:

1. Cost: The amount of money spent on a project.
2. Schedule: The amount of time given to complete a given project.
3. Performance: Specification of a given device (for example the speed of a car).
4. Risk: Impact and probability of an unplanned event occurring.

I will address risk more in an article concerning risk management at a later date. A whole book can be written on risk alone (actually many have been written) but it is outside the scope of this article, the important thing is that you remember it is always there and impossible to eliminate, but it can be minimized.

The other aspect that is interesting with regards to Figure 1 is the pulling nature of each attribute. Take cost, schedule, and technical performance for example. It is impossible to maximize all three. Consider the example of a car, it is impossible to build a car which maximizes performance, that is low cost, and the design of which is completed within an extremely short time frame. One can generally pick two attributes to maximize at the expense of another. For example, if high performance and an accelerated development timeline is desired than the cost in terms of dollars will increase greatly.

The Heart Of The Matter
In Figure 1 you may notice that perception and reality are pulling in opposite directions. This is meant to signify that although reality is certainly always present, perception is pulling at it and in many instances shaping reality. The impact of this relationship is that if not properly managed perception will take over and will lessen if not eliminate the other attributes, especially reality. Consider this – because each person in this world is unique in one way or another and we each see things differently, as such we each perceive reality a bit differently – some more so than others. It may even be argued that we each live in a different reality.

As a result of these two reasons a good deal of attention should be given to managing perception. It has been said that it is a truly rare gift to see yourself as others see you. This is the heart of this relationship and you should strive to manage this relationship by first striving to see yourself as others see you.

How Are You Perceived?
So how are you perceived? How is your business perceived? Your professional work? If you are like most people you see yourself one way and others see you another. The trick is to align perception and reality. For example, you may view yourself as hardworking, professional, and dependable, while others may view you as laid back, amateur, and unreliable. This is of course an extreme, but you get my point.

A good way of aligning perception and reality is to ask the people in your life outright what they think of you. As with your goals you should factor in some discomfort here, as I will reiterate – a little bit of stress is a good thing. The discomfort is asking people who will not necessarily spare your feeling or tell you want to hear – you want individuals who be straightforward with you.

A couple of items worth noting. First, ask as many people as possible their perception of you in a given time period. As with most things, the more information you have in your possession the better. Just keep in mind the source of the information so you can make sense of it later, again is the source someone who would be easy on you, or challenge you to greater things? The former is likely the most comfortable and what you will be intuitively drawn towards as human nature rears its ugly head – however, the latter is the most useful.

A Call To Action
Now that you have the information and know what people think of you, what do you do with it? If people’s perception of you is aligned with your reality, then congratulations! However my thought is that you are never truly finished, just take it up a notch and attempt to surround yourself with an additional social circle of people more accomplished in a given area so you can experience more growth. To see why it is ultimately advantageous to be the “dumbest person in the room”, click here.

Now as for the rest of us just begin addressing one thing at a time. Each item that you address will bring you one step close with aligning perception with reality. For example, if a number of respondents view you as unprofessional a change in appearance, attitude, or stature may be in order. Using the information gathered address the comment and move to the next item. At some point you should check back with the original surveyed individuals and note a change (hopefully) in their perception of you. Something interesting to keep in mind – a change in perception will likely not occur right away regardless of the action taken. I have found that once established a person’s perception of you is difficult to change and takes time to accomplish, but worth pursuing nonetheless.

Another point – when gathering information from others collect information from people whose opinions you value. Again, not to say you should talk to people who will tell you what you want to hear – quite the opposite. However, it is impossible to please everyone – you should not even try – people pleasing is self defeating – I will explain why in a future article.  When I say value, I mean people who will push you and want you to excel, not only that but individuals you admire, either personally, professionally, or at some other level.

One final note – this approach may be used to improve yourself, a particular project whose completion you are pursuing, or your business. When I was introduced to the concept it was in a systems engineering and project management context. The rationale for this process in that environment was that an individual could have the best project which effectively minimized cost and schedule while maximizing performance but fail to manage perception. If the project was perceived as a failure by executive management or even worse, the client, it would likely be canceled, regardless of the reality of the situation. Again, this same situation easily applied to you, a project you are pursuing, or your business.

Perception and reality are often very different things, but aligning the two is worthwhile!

-John R. Sedivy of Cape Cod Branding

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