Wikipedia says that PERCEPTION is..
..The organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to fabricate a mental representation through the process of transduction, which sensors in the body transform signals from the environment into encoded neural signals
And how important this is!
… Perception simply defines the shape of the world for you.
And how interesting this may be!
… Aren’t we just living around perceptions daily?
Everything you do, see, smell, tastes…the way you think: nothing but the product of your perception.
How much of you does it take daily? How wrong and right can you be at same time?
And if perception is just the way our head decides to store information, how hard can it be to .. I don’t know.. Defragment our brains and rearrange info? Shouldn’t be that hard right? Think about it…
SO, here’s my advice for you today…
- Listen and acknowledge
- Store it the way your brain is wired to do so (you can later thank to your parents, society, culture,.. for all that)
- And then, just when you perceive a different view, don’t deny it or fight it. Stop for 30 seconds and reflect on:
- “What I know about this is MY perception. What I hear now is ANOTHER perception. Not better or worse. Just another perspective. Another way of storing, identifying and accessing info from a different brain”.
I knew perception since I was young, but I just stumble on it some time ago while preparing a retrospective about relation between teams. No damage can be done with perspectives, opinions, and comments if you get your teams to understand (or remember actually) what perception is.
And when you do so, you are much more open to talk and more secure about feelings (yours and others).
As far as I’m concerned, and to all people that think that perceptions are just smoke and should not be address inside a working team, I keep my perception on this: YES, they are perceptions and not facts, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. They do. As such they should be address and talked about. It may end in someone changing behavior or mindset, or someone else changing his perceptions: either way it’s a positive breakthrough and brings people closer. Teams closer.
If I can trust you, I am not afraid to talk and confront you.
If I can talk and confront you with my opinion I will commit to what we decide together.
If I can commit to what we decide together I will act accountable for what we do.
If I can act accountable I will fight for our collective results.
And then, just then, we, together, won’t be dysfunctional anymore.