Leaders at every level need to understand that an individual’s perception is reality. This statement is not the same as “everything I believe to be true is true,” which is just lazy, fanciful thinking. Nor is it a license to insist that everyone share your perceptions, which is bullying. Indeed, the failure to grasp this last point or, more cynically, an effort to exploit this last point has led this nation to the cultural-political precipice where we teeter at this moment.
Wise leaders both recognize and respect that their people’s perceptions are their people’s reality. This fact is particularly acute when crossing cultural divides, including (but decidedly not limited to) race, gender, sexual orientation, class, and even organizational rank. Again, we are not here contemplating a license for people, whether leaders or followers, to impose their perceived reality on others or to do as they please. In fact, it is quite the opposite. This essay is a call for leaders to credit others’ different points of view and to supply a heuristic razor for doing so: perception is reality.
In every venue of our society we sort individuals, including ourselves, into identity groups. This inclination and the hierarchies that can ensue will often generate friction and dissonance and significantly contribute to intractable dysfunction in organizations. A wise leader will have tools for resolving such challenges. For instance, a Black, female employee may explain to a White, male boss that she contends with discrimination in their workplace. The boss can have no direct access to her experiences and perceptions and may subsequently not discern any offense, so it behooves him, rather than dismiss her concerns, to listen carefully and defer to her point of view unless and until evidence demonstrates she is in error.
This way of thinking, that others experience events and reality that is different from and perhaps not accessible to us, is patently obvious yet somehow regularly escapes our grasp. Some people are even hostile to this basic notion, a stance that stems from ignorance driven by a dangerous solipsism.
Since you cannot walk in another’s shoes, it is smart to accept their perceptions as their reality. You need not adopt it wholesale as your reality, of course, but you must give other’s perceptions wide berth to stretch and flex while tempering your assumptions. All too often as leaders we immediately want to instead constrain the perceptions of others and impose our own, particularly when they are outside of or challenge our perceptions or foil our designs. Reminding ourselves that our own reality is based entirely on the vagaries of our own perception is helpful here.
So I am introducing a heuristic razor, a tool for getting at the heart of a problem and making decisions. Again, as with all heuristic razors, it is a great tool to start with, but it cannot be your last or only tool. Let’s call it the perception-reality razor.
In longhand: Always assume that another’s perception is valid unless and until evidence demonstrates otherwise.
In shorthand: Perception is reality.
To be sure, sometimes your experience with a person will provide sufficient evidence to conclude otherwise. For instance, if that person has proven time and again to be unreliable for whatever reason, then it would be foolhardy to assume the next time will be different. But, let’s face it, those situations are vanishingly rare. If you are a boss, it is vital to apply this razor liberally by starting with the default that an employee’s perception — sometimes articulated as a complaint or criticism — is valid.
Admittedly, something inside us tends to resist the truth of this razor. One challenge is that we naturally struggle to perceive things in any other way but our own. Good leaders, though, can and must do so in order to remain effective. If it helps, consider this a form of cognitive empathy.
In cases where an accusation is made, this razor may seem opposed to our culture’s sense of justice, which is built around the idea that all individuals are innocent until proven guilty. In other words, the proof of an offense is the burden of the complainant not the alleged offender, who need not prove their innocence because it is assumed.
Superficially, defaulting to another’s perception that they have been wronged may seem counter to this principle of presumptive innocence, but not so. First, the default to innocence is an important and noble concept and can and should inform our decision making, but it is primarily a function of the criminal justice system and does not apply so neatly to other areas.
Second, default innocence, though a vital part of the criminal trial system, does not preclude accusation and investigation of suspects. In fact, when law enforcement investigates a crime, they primarily try to prove guilt rather than search for exculpatory evidence and even make arrests based on their suspicions. When bosses deal with a workplace accusation, they are at first more like law enforcement than judges. Later, as circumstances warrant, they may have to pivot to the more neutral stance of the judiciary.
Wielding the perception-reality razor can be difficult to master since it calls for a leap of trust and often puts us at odds with our own perceptions, thus requiring humility and resilience. It also often involves delicate matters of human identity and demands a dose of empathy. Finally, being all about human perceptions, it runs against all manner of behavior, including irrationality and dishonesty. In short, it sucks, but in a wide world of things that really, really suck, like facing workplace discrimination or bullying, applying the perception-reality razor entails a pretty minor exertion.
Pro Tip: Remember, as a heuristic tool, the perception-reality razor — perception is reality — can clarify quickly, but it is only a tool of first resort.
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Introducing the Perception-Reality Razor