What You See is What You Get

As a leader, the way you see those around you ultimately affects the way you react and relate to others. That way of relating probably started with your first impression and has been reinforced with hundreds or thousands of interactions. It’s like creating self-fulfilling prophecies of the judgements we’ve made about others. This becomes our norm of relating.

Think for a moment about your own team members, who have you labelled as the superstar, who is easy to work with, who is the underperformer, who is the challenger, who is the needy one? These are all perception based judgements you’ve made. Now consider how you relate to each of those people? Do you spend more time with the person that’s agreeable and easy to get along with? Are you more critical of the work of the challenger? Does the person you’ve judged as under-performing or lazy make anger rise up in you? Your perception is impacting your emotions. It forms a belief about why this person operates that way and ultimately your actions. 

What you see is what you get. 

This can be very limiting as a leader. You could actually be undermining yourself, your team and your results. Our actions always follow our beliefs. The problem is that once we make a judgement we put our actions on auto-pilot we tend to let those perceptions dictate how we act and react. It’s easier than the alternative, to grab hold of the controls and challenge our perceptions from time to time and choose different actions. That feels like too much effort in an already overloaded work day. 

We also have a narcissistic tendency to believe we’re right, that we’ve got the full story. Afterall, we keep witnessing the same behaviour. 

So we settle for the output of the underperformer, or we comfort ourselves by extending meetings with our high-performers. We acquiesce and let the naysayer spread gossip or we avoid the challenger by walking the long way back to our desk. We all have done it. 

I’m not asking you to put on a blindfold or rose coloured glasses, I’m asking you to challenge your perception. I’m asking you to look closer, past your assumptions and reinforced perceptions.. I’m asking you to take a second look.

When I take a second look at the under-acheiver I may see someone who is unchallenged and bored. So I’ll give them a new challenge. When I take a second look at the high-achiever I might see my favoritism and what that’s doing to the morale of the team. When I slow down, I can take a second look, see what’s really going on and then adjust my actions accordingly. I can turn off the autopilot. Try it. 

I’m asking you to challenge what you see, so you change what you get. Not seeing something that isn’t there, but seeing more of what’s really there! 

This new string of consciousness will result in new truths that drive new perspectives that create new beliefs that drive new actions that will bring you new results! What you see is what you get.