Perception v Reality Thumb

Perception vs. Reality

On March 31, 2011, in Career, Observations, by Bob Borson

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Perception versus Reality – it’s a phrase I think most of us have heard before and it isn’t to difficult to understand its meaning. Basically, it purports that what you think is real isn’t actually real. Some common examples where this phrase comes into consideration:

Perception: Bob thinks he is a great singer

Reality: The very sound of Bob singing makes nuns drop to their knees, turn their face to the Heavens and say “Sweet Jesus save me! Satan is amongst us!”*

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Perception: Bob thinks that if he trained he could run a mile under 4 minutes

Reality: Bob would pull a muscle in 10 feet and claim that the sun was in his eyes

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Perception: Bob thinks his hair color makes him look old

Reality: The silvery luster of his hair is actually irresistible to women in nursing homes

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See what I mean?   Perception    vs.    reality … pretty simple right? Wrong.

I learned a valuable lesson around my 2nd or 3rd year out of college that stuck with me ever since. I worked in a very small firm – it might have just been just two of us back then. As a result, I was able to do all sorts of things out of necessity because my boss couldn’t be all places and all things to all people at all times. This situation frequently put me in front of clients and I thought I did a pretty good job handling it … until one day when my boss told me that we needed to have a chat.

Boss:Uhm, … we need to have a chat.

Young F.O.S.** Bob: Awesome! Whatever (double finger pistols   bang bang)

Boss: I got a call from “Mr. Big” [not the clients real name - duh] and he told me that he doesn’t want to work with you anymore

Young F.O.S. Bob: Awesome… wait. Wassthat?

Boss: Yeah. He, uhm … He told me that he doesn’t want to work with you because you make him feel stupid.

Young F.O.S. Bob: How is that even possible!? I’m 26 and he’s like 100 and the President of ‘Giant Company’!

Boss: He said that you speak to him like he’s 10 years old, doesn’t know anything and …

Young F.O.S. Bob: (interrupting) hold on, hold on a minute. I try to  e x p l a i n   what we are trying to do, I don’t treat him like he’s a kid … I like Mr. Big.

Boss: You talk down to him and he doesn’t like it. Bottom line is that he doesn’t want to work with you and that’s a real problem for me.

Young F.O.S. Bob: But he’s wrong, maybe if I could explain it to him …

Boss: (interrupting) That’s just it … He is the client, you work for him – his perception is reality regardless of what you think.

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Get it?

That was a lesson I will never forget. I don’t claim that I have stopped talking down to people but I am conscious of that behavior and I am more careful how I speak to clients (tip #1 – don’t talk like an architect). I had a conversation about this very subject this weekend with my wife and as always, she succinctly made a supporting point that no two people have the same reality and therefore they can’t have the same perception of that same reality.

Let’s say you are in a restaurant and you think the service is crap because you have to flag down your waiter constantly for every possible thing – it’s like he doesn’t even know you’re there! One table over, someone else thinks the service is fantastic because the waiter isn’t constantly bugging them and topping off their tea whenever it drops a 1/2″ causing them to perform PhD level chemistry equations to get the right ratio of sugar/ tea while taking into consideration the amount of tea remaining with the amount added, the rate at which the ice is melting, and since your not using real sugar anyway do you need to add an 1/8th of a packet or is it more like 3/16th’s? As a result, you’re thinking you need to start drinking unsweetened tea … and you hate your waiter.

Same restaurant, same waiter, same service – drastically different perceptions of the same reality. Think the tip will be the same? No, I don’t think so either.

At some point, and in almost every conceivable customer service situation, there is no difference between perception and reality. What each person perceived might as well have been reality because they based their actions (or reactions) on their own experience of the event. Learning how to deal with the perception of others as if it were your own reality is hard but it’s an important skill to learn. A really, really important skill.

Cheers.

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* That isn’t true, they actually think they are hearing a multitude of angels singing as the Gates of Heaven open for them

**F.O.S. – full of stupidity

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About the author

Bob Borson

Dallas architect who specializes in modern design. I'm AIA, Leed AP, NCARB certified, and previous Dallas AIA Young Architect of the Year (2009).

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  • Alistair

    Very important lesson Bob – don’t patronise (that means don’t talk down to people).

  • http://www.lifeofanarchitect.com Bob Borson

    I figured you could speak architect but obviously you are from the UK. In the great USA, it would be patronize (you know, with a ‘z’ )

  • Brodie

    Very good article. I’d disagree slightly with your wife (not that I would recommend you do such a thing!). I think how you described it was more accurate – 1 reality, multiple perceptions of that reality. As opposed to “no two people have the same reality…”

  • Brenda Lynn

    Another great post, Bob. Love seeing the pictures of young Bob, just curious, how did Robert Downey, Jr. get into there?

    Brenda Lynn

  • http://profiles.google.com/arne.salvesen Arne Salvesen

    I was wondering about Downey myself. Maybe I just perceived the pictures were there.

    Great points Bob, especially the client lesson. I have the same issue … feel like I’m speaking “with authority” but am perceived as being arrogant. I can’t change who I am, but I can manage it.

    @Brodie … the wife’s perception is always reality. Just sayin …

  • http://www.lifeofanarchitect.com Bob Borson

    Brodie – her point is far more cerebral than mine. Since the whole topic is that the individual’s perception becomes their reality, not two people can have the same reality. It is how a person perceives another’s reality to claim it as their own – the variable is the perception. Since the two are linked, if one changes, so does the other. I am sure there is a fancy name for this maxim but I’m not that smart (but my wife is – I should ask her…)

    Thanks for the comment, I hope to see more of you.

    Bob

  • http://www.lifeofanarchitect.com Bob Borson

    He is my perception of how I looked when I had brown hair. There’s me, followed by my perception, followed by my reality.

    It’s supposed to be clever and funny – maybe I missed the mark a bit on that one :/

    Cheers

  • http://www.lifeofanarchitect.com Bob Borson

    Arne – see my comment below to Brenda to get my explanation about Robert Downey Jr. It’s hilarious?

    And to the last bit of your last comment – thin ice my friend, very thin ice (better keep looking over your shoulder for the wives out there…)

  • Brodie

    You’ll definitely keep seeing me. I really enjoy your blog.

    Interesting point. I don’t know how far you want to take this conversation since it may only run vaguely tangent to your original article, but I wonder if we’re using different definitions of “reality.” For example, using your example, I would say the “reality” of the situation is that the waiter didn’t visit either table often and received a good tip from one table and a bad tip from the other (that one reality encompasses everyone). The fact that one person thought he was a bad waiter and the other thought him a good waiter would be two perceptions on that one reality. Although their perceptions do have real world consequences (ie. the size of the tip), at no point do their perceptions alter the facts of that one reality or create a divergent reality.

  • Jeremiah

    I could not have said it better, Arne. “I can’t change who I am, but I can manage it.” Awesome.

  • http://www.dogwalkblog.com/ Rufus Dogg

    I just spent a couple days with someone in the Mystery Shopping business. Most people think that mystery shopping is measuring customer satisfaction, but it isn’t. It is measuring the objective deliverables on the brand promise, i.e., to your restaurant example: were you greeted within two minutes of entering, did the host wear a tie, did your server fill your ice tea before half full, etc; Stuff you can MEASURE. These are FACTS based on a set of promises that the brand makes to their customers. The customer expectation can be all over the map (and usually is) I think the food portions are small, I want three ice cubes in my tea, I want 10 packets in the tray, I expect the hostess to know my name, etc. One is measurable, the other is not.. only acknowledgeable. But the cycle between the brand promise and the customer expectation is always changing, rinse, repeat, measure, etc…

    My guess is your boss did not communicate the brand promise to you as clearly as he should have. His brand promise was “The client will always be happy and smarter than us.” Believe it or not, there are firms out there that deliver on the brand promise “We are the experts and will always be smarter than the client” and people line up out the door with checks in hand to be treated like 10-year olds. Delivering anything less would not be delivering on the brand promise.

    This doesn’t make one or the other good or bad, just mis-matched. Your choice was to either change to fit the brand promise (which I assume you did) or go get a job at one of the those other firms and continue to make people feel stupid. Either choice would have been fine as long as the brand promise was kept.

    But different realities from customers is just a sign that they are not buying from the right place. When I fly Southwest, my expectation is to be herded in like the cattle I am, get flown from here to there and delivered alive. Anything else is a bonus. They promise me no more. But when I fly Lufthansa in First Class, the damn silverware better be spotless, the drinks cold, the food hot, the pillows fluffy and they will call me Herr Dogg.

    Make sense?

  • http://www.lifeofanarchitect.com Bob Borson

    Yes – of course it makes sense. Your response is actually why this is such a good topic to discuss because I think you have missed the mark as well – but only because you probably did not feel like writing out every possible combination of brand promise with it’s own set of actions and effects.

    Our brand promise was not that the client will always be happy and smarter, just happy. We are still the experts – the issue was never with the information I was delivering, it was the delivery method itself (so smarter had nothing to do with it). My wife worked in the management consulting business for years, traveled 4 out of every 5 days and the attitude you describe was exactly the culture she worked in – almost a “shut up and do what I tell you” atmosphere. The ingredient there that I try to avoid is the arrogance that often-times accompanies being an expert. It is not that uncommon that the high net worth individuals I work with have delusional visions of self-importance and if I come in and condescend to them since I am the expert and they should shut up and listen … let’s just say I wouldn’t be in business very long. I need to educate them and protect them from themselves – it’s the same information, just a shift in the delivery.

    I can strive to exceed expectations, deliver the skill as promised, within the timetable I outlined, and do it all without making the client feel stupid. That sounds like a pretty good brand promise to work around.

  • http://www.dogwalkblog.com/ Rufus Dogg

    Let me be perfectly clear…. :-)

    Whatever that brand promise was, it was not fully explained or demonstrated to you, through no fault of your own or your boss. I’m going through a process of “brand divorce” right now with one of our products I founded that I have held onto for too long. I am desperately trying to turn it over to a writer and account exec. I am going through that painful process of identifying the nuance in the language, the approach, the culture, etc.. even the mundane stuff as writing a blog post! The community can pick out a “carpetbagger” a mile away just by the terms and tone.

    A brand promise is not easy to articulate and many, many, many companies never do the exercise. And the sticky thing is, it keeps evolving, depending on what the brand promise is about adapting to change.

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