Over the years, I’ve had people talk to me about how their intentions were misconstrued by the recipient of their actions. Sometimes they understand why someone thought something, but that wasn’t the way they “meant it.” Other times they are perplexed at why someone was unhappy. And then we almost always end up talking about perception. Why should we worry about influencing perceptions?
Perception is reality
We’ve all heard this statement at one point or another, and there is merit behind the phrase. I’ve used it myself. If I say or do something that makes you perceive me as a jerk, then at least to you, I am a jerk in that moment. Leaders face challenges with perception on a regular basis, particularly if those leaders are also members of management. Your staff is not privy to all of your conversations, projects, direction from your leaders, strategies, goals, or inner thoughts. Nor should they be subject to all of it. But because they are dealing with incomplete information, their perception of you and the organization shapes their feelings and actions in their daily activity. A positive perception is likely to lead to more positive outcomes. A negative impression, particularly if it occurs more than once, is more likely to lead to other problems. As perception worsens, interactions become poorer, employee engagement decreases, and these perceptions may fester and spread if not addressed. All the while with a manager scratching their head about how it occurred.
“How do you control perception?”
This is a question I’ve been asked when discussing the divergence between perception and intention. This is the wrong question, and I advised that the word choice needed to be reviewed (we’ll discuss word choice in more depth in another article). You cannot control the perception of another person, you are not inside their brain. But you can influence their perception. This can be done through a series of mindful actions. Remember the adage that “actions speak louder than words.” To influence perception, you need to first think about what it is you wish to project, and where are you hearing about issues. Then you can take action to address the gaps between intention and perception. Be aware, not everyone will interpret your actions the same way you will… this is why it is influencing. You cannot control someone’s thoughts. One person may feel that they are focused, someone else may think they are grumpy. One person’s “helping” actions may be patronizing to another.
An exercise in influencing perception
Let’s take a look at a scenario to see how this plays out with a fairly common complaint in larger teams – fairness and favoritism. In this example, the perception among some employees is: “If you are not part of that group, management doesn’t care about you.” The manager is perplexed, they regularly tell everyone that they care about team and want everyone to succeed. Yes, they hold people accountable, but they also try to create an upbeat atmosphere in the office. They try to create fun events. They joke, laugh, and every day they talk with employees as they walk through the office. Many employees seem happy, so why are there complaints that “management doesn’t care?” Obviously there is a disconnect here. The management intends to create a fun and supportive culture, but the employees perceive that management doesn’t really care.
To understand how to influence perception, we have to look at the actions leading to this perception. I begin by asking questions about the actions noted:
- As there seems to be disparity between employee groups, let’s start with “everyone.” When you say you want “everyone” to succeed, do you follow the same actions for all team members? When celebrating a success, working on developing skills, or correcting poor performance, is there equitable application?
- When fun events are scheduled, do you try to cover all shifts? Do you give advance notice so people can join in if desired? Do you vary the types of fun events to capture different personalities? What some people find fun, others may consider torture.
- On the more personal level, when the manager talks with employees “every day” – do they always talk to the same subset of employees? Do they tend to have deeper conversations with some and barely say “hello” to others?
Addressing Perception
As this is a light-weight scenario, the questions we can directly ask are limited. But we could potentially look at other questions about actions:
- How do the employees see the manager interact with other members of management or with other organizations?
- What “closed door” conversations are overheard?
- When difficult changes are made, how are they planned, executed, and communicated?
- How often are employees engaged in plans, projects, changes, communications? Are the same employees always selected, or are different groups used to get different thoughts and opinions?
This is just a sampling of potential questions, and each environment is different so not all questions and potential actions would apply. But by asking these questions, we can begin to see how a manager could be unintentionally setting up a perception of favoritism. To help influence perception, the manager can use the answers to these questions to adjust their actions: make a concerted effort to talk different people on a regular basis; ensure successes are celebrated across all employees; get employee feedback from a wide group as to what they would find “fun”; take time to understand development opportunities of the team members (what do they want to do, what do they want to learn), etc.
As a leader, you cannot force people to have a positive perception of you 100% of the time. There will be times where you make unpopular decisions. There are times when people won’t agree with you or your actions. And there will be some people who just don’t like you. This is ok. But if you are mindful of the actions you take, you can help influence perception to align closer to your intention.
