Perception

Something new happened yesterday, something not very common in the history of my company. All the engineers working on a specific project were called into a room and given a program level update. It was basically a follow-up on a 3 day customer visit, termed as 'De-briefing', where the acting Program Manager, SK, spoke about the good and the bad points that came out of the visit.

It was good in lot of ways, but there were a few specific sentence that caught my attention and this blog is all about that.

The current project that I am working on, offers a 'first time' on lot of avenues and two of them being:
- It's the first time that we are working with a company, from a Far Eastern country.
- It's the first time that they are working with an Indian company, or any outsider for that matter.

Hence, in such cases, correct communication takes top priority. To stress the point, SK talked about an important aspect of Human behaviour. Whenever two people, especially strangers meet, they perceive - Mr. X automatically perceives Mr. Y in a particular manner and vice versa.

He then went on to mention about a famous COO from his previous company, who told him something important, whenever he went on customer visits. He was told that Perceiving is a function of Communication and Reality.

Perception ~ Communication + Reality

This gap between Perception and Reality is also shown in the movie 'Inception'. I vaguely remember Leonardo Di-Caprio, sitting with Ellen Page and telling her about Dreams. He says that in our dreams, we Create and Perceive at the same time. He draws two semi-circular arrows going in opposite directions, for these two aspects, and most importantly leaves a gap between the two. It is true that, many times, what you create may not be what you perceive and understanding that gap could determine the success factor of your creation.

Coming back to our example, from the above equation, it is now obvious that if your Communication is correct, precise and remains a constant throughout, the person in front will perceive reality!!

Perception = Reality

This beautifully highlights the 'Importance of Communication' in the world today. It was a point that my ex-boss, from DVG Melbourne, also stressed on. He made me look back at every phone call I made or took and re-look at every email I sent. He would ask me if I could do it better the next time and that, he told me was the only way I could improve.

He said that 'Communication' is not about telling the other person what you want to say. Instead, it is the art of making sure he understands what you intended to say. So, to do that even if you have to use broken sentences, sans any grammar in it, or make use of sign language - so be it.