When Perceptions Play Against Us
While helping an organization navigate a difficult conflict this past week, one of the people in the meeting talked about another person’s reaction to the situation. Here’s how he described it, “When I asked this person to come into the office on his vacation day, he pulled up his pissy pants and refused to come in even though he wasn’t going anywhere that day.”
This certainly described the man’s feelings about the other man, but it didn’t accurately capture what had happened. This man was relying on his perception of what happened, not the behavior he observed. In our work, we talk about this as perception versus behavior.
When we focus on our perception of what happened, we end up interpreting what happened. We decide we know what was going on in that person’s head and assign meaning to their behaviors. The behaviors we see are the only thing we have to gauge, but it’s our perception that interprets what happened.
For most of us, when we neutralize what we see by simply describing the behavior versus using our interpretation of the behavior, we are more effective with our teams and we’re more likely to resolve conflict. One way we can neutralize what we perceive or interpret is by looking at the situation as if we were looking at a photograph.
By asking, what do I actually see in this picture? I neutralize my interpretation. The man in the meeting would have said, “I saw someone who had a vacation day planned and who said he was unable to make the meeting I was trying to schedule.” That’s a very different interpretation than someone wearing pissy pants and having a rotten attitude about the efforts the other man was making to resolve the situation.
When we neutralize what we see by describing behaviors, we find teams can often resolve their conflicts more easily because it provides a more gracious attitude toward the other person. It assumes the best versus the worst.
To the credit of the man I was talking with, when I called him on using language focused on his perception, not on what actually happened, he owned his words and we got down to the heart of what happened. The team was able to move forward together. That’s the power of describing behaviors versus getting caught up in perceptions.
Try it this week. When you run into a situation that bugs you in some way, think about how you react. Do you describe what you see or do you describe what you think the other person meant by his or her actions? To learn more about this concept, watch our video on Perception vs. Behavior here.
Side note: We discuss this concept extensively in our DiSC Communication Styles classes. These are some of my favorite sessions, so if your teams haven’t done anything like this – they should! It’s a super powerful tool designed to help teams neutralize their behaviors and focus on the issues at hand, resulting in more effective conflict and better outcomes.
Keynote speaker, trainer, and consultant, Sarah Gibson, helps organizations leverage the power of communication, teamwork and diversity to improve engagement and transform teams. To buy her book or inquire about her speaking programs, please visit www.sarahjgibson.com.
