Lessons learnt in Perception

I once worked for a company where the CEO would stand up in front of new employees and give them a spiel about the company and his expectations. In HR world, this would be considered a very good thing. The only problem was the content of what he said (including the fact that everyone should be able to handle being told to f**k off at least once at work). It was the beginning of what those employees would experience as a 'bullying culture'. The other interesting thing he said which has stuck with me is that 'perception is reality'. That is our customers perceive us to be providing a quality and premium service, then we were. Even if we knew that we almost killed ourselves behind the scenes, as long as the customer saw a polished front, that was all that mattered. It never felt very authentic or genuine to me. There was something cheap about pretending to provide a service that you actually weren't.

Skip forward a couple of years and I'm working for one of the least professional managers of my career. She also had no idea what she was doing technically. Our general manager thought she was absolutely wonderful! So I convinced myself that perhaps she was. Maybe that CEO was right. What did it matter what I thought of her? So what if she didn't know what she was talking about? Our main customer thought she was great, so who was I to argue.

Anyway, long story short, I was reading a book on being politically savvy the other day and they rephrased the saying to 'perception isn't reality, but it may as well be'. And that, is the truth. Perception is SSSOOOOOO important. I work in a job where people's careers live or die by perception, so I absolutely understand how important it is. But I also think we should manage our perception of ourselves to remain authentic and within our capabilities.

Whilst she was perceived to be a great HR manager, after she left there was a very big clean up job to manage the number of fires she had lit around the business. Whilst the General Manager thought she was good, the reality was in fact, that she wasn't.

This week I've been pondering what the perception is of me at work and how accurate that may be. If I reach the conclusion that it's not accurate, I'm going to find a way to change that perception and manage the risk of leaving that trail of destruction... I would hate to be known as deceitful.