Perception Vs. Performance:

Why Does it Take a Herculean Effort to Overcome Prevailing Perceptions than to Just Perform Well?!

In a well-crafted and timely blog, Tony Tascas recent post, Perception is Reality: The Lessons from Ferguson, the author provides his insights on how the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson and its aftermath has polarized the country and how this anger has now spilled over even beyond our own borders purely driven by collective perceptions. Tasca does a great job of defining perception, reality, facts, and the truth and succeeds in convincing the readers that a persons reality is colored by their own biases, filters, insecurities, and imprinting. Most people are oblivious to their predilections to such biases and it is very difficult for them to connect their reality to the truth. Their reality often becomes their truth!

In this blog I would like to focus on how organizational perceptions can thwart a persons efforts to perform well by doing the right thing inside an organization, yet the lingering perceptions others have about this person can vitiate the persons efforts to overcome and succeed in an otherwise rational organization. I have many clients suffering from discounted perceptions, despite their heroic efforts to work hard and to do the right thing for their organization. Their refrain: How do I get my boss and others who matter to objectively judge my contributions and to merely acknowledge what I have contributed? Here, they are not necessarily looking for a reward, raise, or a promotion; just recognition for their good work!

Again, building on Tascas assertion (as Psychologists define it) that perception is the conscious recognition and interpretation of sensory stimuli that serve as basis for understanding, learning, and knowing or for motivating a particular actions or reaction, it is easy to see how in a busy organization people who matter are required to make snap judgments of events, employees, and outcomes, and then use those judgments to decide the fate of those who matter.

So, what can you do to change that and to put yourself in a positive light, knowing that you cannot always control how others form their perceptions? Here is my prescription:

1. Peoples perceptions about you are formed over time. Once perceptions start crystallizing they build on that initial seed and keep on growing. So, the best way to stop from becoming a victim of misperceptions is to first become aware of how a certain outcome (or behavior) that you are responsible for can be misinterpreted by those who matter and how you can preemptively counter that misperception by taking charge of its fallout.As an example, I have manager-level client, whose skip-level boss is a tyrant, a micromanager, and just an obnoxious human being. He expected my client to be responsible for closing some key tickets resulting from QA squawks. My client was working on a critical release and he assessedcorrectlythat his direct reports could easily tackle the open tickets, so he delegated them to his team. Assigned team members closed those tickets and signed their name, so no closed tickets were visible to this micromanager with my clients name. The big boss came down hard on my client for evading work and for goofing off, even though my client was working 16-hour days to protect the release date. Yet another problem my client had was that he was also blessed with a feckless immediate boss.

   Here, what my client should have done, knowing fully well the disposition of his wrathful uber boss, is to first preemptively go to him and discuss his approach to getting the release out on time, which was important to everyone, and how he was going to manage to close the open tickets through that period, keeping his feckless boss in the loop all the while. Failing to do that caused unnecessary grief for my client and a way for his uber boss to hold that perception hostage to my clients success.

2. If you are doing good work you can almost count on someone taking credit for that work or worse, hijacking your entire project when it is headed for success. One way to keep yourself in control of that success is to first present the project plan to your boss(es) and to make sure that there is clear accountability. Also, keeping your boss and others informed of the progress (or lack thereof) keeps the flow of critical information going to the right people. The idea is to avoid any surprises, which often result in misperceptions. So, keeping everyone on the same page is an important aspect of managing your perceptions.
3. One of the ways to check how others view your work is to have conversations with those that matter and check their impressions (perceptions) of what they see in your work. Proactively doing this can help you manage your own PR work and it is often worth your time and trouble. Besides, it is a good way to build relationships with people that matter and to build mentoring relationships with them. This strategy also enables you build alliances that can help you in troubled times.
4. One of the ways you can learn about how perceptions are formed and how they can be changed is to watch someone in your workgroup and do a reality check of what they actually do Vs. how they are perceived by others. If such a person is approachable it may be a good exerciseand a favor to that personif you are able to reach them and tell them how they can change how others perceive them by giving them some first-hand tips. Make sure that you do not get burnt in the process of illuminating your colleague, but it may be a risk worth taking.
5. Cemented perceptions are difficult to change. Also, if they are formed over a long period they stay in peoples mind as their reality, which is almost impossible to change. So, if you have reached a stage in your workgroup or organization, where misperceptions about you are affecting your success and sanity, it is time to move on and begin with a fresh start somewhere else with a new mindset.

The subtitle of this blog is Why Does it Take a Herculean Effort to Overcome Prevailing Perceptions than to Just Perform Well?! Now you can see why that is true!

Good luck!

About Author

Dilip has distinguished himself as LinkedIn’s #1 career coach from among a global pool of over 1,000 peers ever since LinkedIn started ranking them professionally (LinkedIn selected 23 categories of professionals for this ranking and published this ranking from 2006 until 2012). Having worked with over 6,000 clients from all walks of professions and having worked with nearly the entire spectrum of age groups—from high-school graduates about to enter college to those in their 70s, not knowing what to do with their retirement—Dilip has developed a unique approach to bringing meaning to their professional and personal lives. Dilip’s professional success lies in his ability to codify what he has learned in his own varied life (he has changed careers four times and is currently in his fifth) and from those of his clients, and to apply the essence of that learning to each coaching situation. After getting his B.Tech. (Honors) from IIT-Bombay and Master’s in electrical engineering(MSEE) from Stanford University, Dilip worked at various organizations, starting as an individual contributor and then progressing to head an engineering organization of a division of a high-tech company, with $2B in sales, in California’s Silicon Valley. His current interest in coaching resulted from his career experiences spanning nearly four decades, at four very diverse organizations–and industries, including a major conglomerate in India, and from what it takes to re-invent oneself time and again, especially after a lay-off and with constraints that are beyond your control. During the 45-plus years since his graduation, Dilip has reinvented himself time and again to explore new career horizons. When he left the corporate world, as head of engineering of a technology company, he started his own technology consulting business, helping high-tech and biotech companies streamline their product development processes. Dilip’s third career was working as a marketing consultant helping Fortune-500 companies dramatically improve their sales, based on a novel concept. It is during this work that Dilip realized that the greatest challenge most corporations face is available leadership resources and effectiveness; too many followers looking up to rudderless leadership. Dilip then decided to work with corporations helping them understand the leadership process and how to increase leadership effectiveness at every level. Soon afterwards, when the job-market tanked in Silicon Valley in 2001, Dilip changed his career track yet again and decided to work initially with many high-tech refugees, who wanted expert guidance in their reinvention and reemployment. Quickly, Dilip expanded his practice to help professionals from all walks of life. Now in his fifth career, Dilip works with professionals in the Silicon Valley and around the world helping with reinvention to get their dream jobs or vocations. As a career counselor and life coach, Dilip’s focus has been career transitions for professionals at all levels and engaging them in a purposeful pursuit. Working with them, he has developed many groundbreaking approaches to career transition that are now published in five books, his weekly blogs, and hundreds of articles. He has worked with those looking for a change in their careers–re-invention–and jobs at levels ranging from CEOs to hospital orderlies. He has developed numerous seminars and workshops to complement his individual coaching for helping others with making career and life transitions. Dilip’s central theme in his practice is to help clients discover their latent genius and then build a value proposition around it to articulate a strong verbal brand. Throughout this journey, Dilip has come up with many groundbreaking practices such as an Inductive Résumé and the Genius Extraction Tool. Dilip owns two patents, has two publications in the Harvard Business Review and has led a CEO roundtable for Chief Executive on Customer Loyalty. Both Amazon and B&N list numerous reviews on his five books. Dilip is also listed in Who’s Who, has appeared several times on CNN Headline News/Comcast Local Edition, as well as in the San Francisco Chronicle in its career columns. Dilip is a contributing writer to several publications. Dilip is a sought-after speaker at public and private forums on jobs, careers, leadership challenges, and how to be an effective leader.

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