Perception Traps: Distortions and Deficits

Is seeing believing? It should not be. Our perceptions can be superficial and incomplete. Car accident witnesses describe the same event differently. Architects, security personnel and employees see the same office, but what registers with them varies significantly. We see through our filters without even recognizing that we employ a limited lens. Being conscious of our own perception biases improves teamwork, engagement, and results. It can also improve communication with others.

We must recognize that we register a narrow slice of reality because we rely on what we already “know.”  We like observations that confirm our past experience. And, this means we miss the opportunity to identify what is new and what is possible. These perceptional deficiencies can be overcome in several ways:

1.     We have a perception deficiency that is best addressed by asking others what they see. The picture above illustrated that there are multiple accurate interpretations of the same reality. Some may focus on the white vase, while others concentrate on the profiles of two people. Accepting that there are other valid points of view increases our ability to understand reality as well as ensure that we see all that there is to see.

2.     We conquer perceptual distortions by keeping our minds open and rejecting all stereotypes. Labels gloss over distinctions. They also encourage simplistic thinking and an unwarranted belief that we know all that we need to know. Stereotypes also reduce cooperation and teamwork. Kierkegaard captured this reality when he stated: “Once you label me, you negate me.” When we attach a label to someone, we stop paying attention to them. Labels transform the other person into one of “THEM,” which is an impersonal, and usually less respectful, abstraction.  Stereotypes blind us as certainly as if we were wearing blinders. An every day, and all too common, example is using age to assume competency. Can a person over 40 really know how to handle IT problems? The answer is yes. It depends on their training, continued development and experience not their age.

3.     Distorted and fixed perceptions are dangerous. Our world is becoming more complex, integrated and agile, and that static points of view limit our ability to collect information and recognize patterns. Holding onto a narrow view means we make mistakes because our actions are based on incomplete knowledge. Convinced in our accuracy, we refuse to adjust our views or consider other options. Instead of listening to different points of view, we prefer to have others just agree with us.  When others realize that our mind is made up, they stop sharing information since it becomes a waste of their time.

We get our eyes examined to ensure that we see clearly. We must also test our perceptions. For as Thoreau noted: “It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” We must continually test our perceptional mindsets before we accept what we initially see as all that there is to see.

About Author:

Dr. Mary Lippitt,  an award-winning author, consultant, and speaker, founded Enterprise Management Ltd. to help leaders with critical analysis.  Her new book, Situational Mindsets:  Targeting What Matters When It Matters was published last year with a Foreword from Daivd Covey. She can be reached at mlippitt@enterprisemgt.com or https://www.linkedin.com/in/marylippitt/

Bridging Silos

BRIDGING SILOS

When you think of silos, do corn and grain come to mind? Or that self-serving department at work that won’t cooperate with anyone. It’s tempting to create our own silo in response.But that just increases the toxicity.Instead, we must bridge these silos and create common ground.

Let’s take an example. Picture yourself as VP of sales. Operations hasn’t produced or shipped a large order for a new customer. This delay might mean that the customer will be lost.The response from those in Operationsis that they did geta heads up on the big order,they had to order new materials, and they were already working overtime.  They do not want Sales to make promisesthat can’t be kept.

It is easy to see how these attitudes can grow into finger-pointing and stereotypes that can spiral out of control.  How could you bridge these divergent views? There are four ways to tear down silos.

Listening.Understand the facts from the other party’s point of view. Learn“What’s in It for Them (WIIFT)” and then share the facts and goals from your perspective or WIIFM.  Objectivity defuses labels and avoids finger-pointing and starts to build a bridge between viewpoints. It also builds respect and engagement.

Questioning.  Use questions to surface as much factual information on the situation as possible.  This creates a common understanding of the situation and can reveal new solutions.  Consider the following six questions that address six different situational mindsets;

    • What is a creative solution? (Innovation)
    • How can we best serve the customer now? (Customer Focus)
    • What processes or practices could prevent this from happening in the future? (Infrastructure)
    • What is the most efficient way to deliver on time and with quality? (Efficiency)
    • What changes to staffing, workflow, training, or operating practices will increase efficiency and quality? (Talent and Culture)
    • What can we learn from this situation? What should we do in the future? (Strategic Thinking)

Think Win-Win.Searching for mutual advantage forestalls tension,withholding information,and any sense of rivalry.  The process is not difficult, and it requires a question such as What are our alternatives to working this out?  In reality, everyone wants to succeed, and that desire creates new solutions.

Moving Forward. The word solution is often misassociated with a perfect and permanent resolution.  This misconception blocks progress. It is the equivalent of assuming that only scoring is an acceptable outcome in football, soccer, baseball, or any other sport.  Foreward progress counts too.  In sports and business, moving the ball forward counts as a win. Incremental steps constitute progress.

You don’t have to be a genius or have a degree in engineering to build a bridge. Ask questions, listen, and explore to discover mutually satisfying progress.  It will burst existing silos and prevent the construction of new ones. 

Dr. Mary Lippitt,is the author of Situational Mindsets: Targeting What Matters When It Matters.  She is an award-winning author and speaker, and founder of Enterprise Management Ltd., an international firm helping leaders build engagement and deliver resutls.

 

Situational Mindsets: Targeting What Matters When It Matters

Situational Mindsets expands leadership beyond mastering personal style, skill set, and positive characteristics.  It adds the ability to adjust to dynamic conditions and deliver results.  The importance of situational awareness was cited as early as the 5th century BC in The Art of War by Sun Tze.  Sun Tze described how the terrain, weather, population, sources for food and water, and vegetation were important factors in military strategy.

While the challenges facing our leaders today differ, knowing what has been what is and what is changing enables leaders to accurately assess their current environment to make a smart decision.

Situational Mindsets offer a framework to effectively scan an organization’s environment, weigh alternatives, decipher complexity, and address changing realities. Leaders cannot do everything that they want to do, but they must target what is vital at this moment in time. Using situational mindsets, leaders grasp present realities, foster engagement, circumvent risk and leverage opportunities. Situational mastery flows from asking questions. It does not depend on IQ, advanced degrees or extensive training.  Also, when we exchange information, we promote understanding and alignment.  Leaders do not need to have all the right answers, but they must ask all of the right questions.  No one person can handle the pace of change, the growing complexity and amount of data.  But the task is not overwhelming.  It merely requires a situational mindset checklist to guide data collection and prevent potential blind spots.

Six situational mindsets cover key organizational factors: new products and services, customer focus and competitive position, organizational excellence, productivity and profitability, people and culture, and preparing for the future.  Insights from situational mindsets prioritize actions and prevent blunders.

Another benefit is that mindsets enhance respect for different points of view.  Valuing diverse perspectives builds collaboration and initiative. It also reduces interpersonal conflict. It provides the clues to walk in another’s shoes translates.  It spotlights how to influence their thinking and actions. It is also the greatest honor you can give to another person—to listen to them and help them achieve their goals.  After we understand all perspectives and realities, we can discover common ground.

In the dynamic 21st century the scope of leadership must expand.  Situational mastery, critical thinking, priority setting, and sustainable results play a critical role in a person’s and an organization’s success. Click to order your copy ☛ Situational Mindsets

Join me on October 29th at 1 pm Eastern for a FREE webinar on Situational Mindsets:  How to Boost Critical thinking and Deliver Results ⤵︎  click link below

Situational Mindsets: How to Boost Critical Thinking and Deliver Results – with Mary Lippitt

Published with permission from Bizcatalyst360.

Six Situational Mindsets To Putting First Things First

No one would argue that as leaders, we want to immediately tackle the most important issue or opportunity. As Stephen Covey advises, “put first things first.”  However, deciding what is most important, and that awareness, cannot be made based on past practice, outdated assumptions, or preconceived options.  Circumstances change too quickly to rely on what was valid.  We must continually reassess our situation and alternatives. Interestingly, a study of leaders found that 80% of them never consider alternatives or situational mindsets before making a decision, despite changing conditions.

When we drive our cars, we cannot rely exclusively on what we see through our windshield.  We also check the side and rear view mirrors.  But we also have to check our dashboard for speed and any warning lights.  This expanded context ensures our safety.  Likewise, leaders banking on a single viewpoint miss opportunities and invite risk.  Utilizing multiple sources of current information delivers optimal choices.

Leaders inherently know this, however, many leaders will utilize default decision-making, blindly sticking to tradition; skim over or ignore data that contradicts beliefs; or readily jump on any goal bandwagon, and implement current fads. In a dynamic environment, adopting a “ready, fire” approach is dangerous.  “Aiming” or situational awareness must precede the decision to launch as it is the only way to discover the best path forward. Instead of believing we have all the answers, we must commit to asking all the right questions to analyze our circumstances.

So, what is the alternative when deciding what goal to pursue? Leaders must become situationally aware by studying six situational realities.

To collect the information for aiming, questions addressing six situational factors must be investigated.  These mindsets depict what has happened, what is happening, and what is likely to happen.  The situational mindsets are:

  • Inventing or measuring how innovative your products, designs, and services compared with what is possible.
  • Catalyzing or assessing the level of your customer service, market position, and sales effectiveness compared to the competition.
  • Developing or evaluating system effectiveness, information flow, unit alignment, goal and policy alignment, decision making and autonomy
  • Performing or studying the quality of deliverables, cycle time, productivity, workflow, safety, and ROI
  • Protecting or questioning staffing levels, retention of key talent, succession planning, engagement, and cultural agility
  • Challenging or examining trends, business plan options, validating assumptions, identifying niches and searching for alliances

Inquiring about these situational mindsets provide leaders with the ability to see what is on the wall, around the corner, and within reach.  And it is an easy practice to implement.  The six mindsets become a checklist to ascertain complex, challenging, ambiguous, or precedent setting circumstances.

In addition to developing a mindset question checklist, we should also:

  1. Allocate time for reflection, analysis, and imagination. The KISS principle (Keep It Simple Stupid) only works when things are stable. Dynamic factors and new realities are rarely simple. H. L. Mencken captured this truth by saying, “There is always an easy solution to every human problem” neat, plausible and wrong.” We must stretch our thinking to secure our future.
  2. Identify our biases and rationalizations. Smart choices mean we must generate new ideas to address the waves of change. As Einstein stated, “We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking we used when we created them.”
  3. Recognize the power of asking open-ended questions. As Dr. E. Edwards Deming remarked, “If you do not know how to ask the right question, you discover nothing.” Expand the scope of your questions to detect trends, examine implications, and craft new opportunities.
  4. Accept the fact that the greatest obstacle to our future is not ignorance, but the illusion that we already know all that we need to know. We must dig deeper and wider in a search for new knowledge and insights.  It is important to ask: what have we learned what should we start doing, and what should we stop doing. Mark Twain observed, “What gets us into trouble is not what we don’t know. It is what we know for sure that just ain’t so.
  5. Resist peer pressure and the temptation to follow the crowd. Enthusiasm for a new initiative regularly conceals flaws and squashes critical thinking.  Ask for what could go wrong, what other options are there, and what potential issues might surface. As journalist Walter Lippman observed, “Where all think alike, no one thinks very much.”  We need people to think and speak up.

Take the time to ask the mindset questions to discover what to put first.  Let’s make our future truly promising.

Published first at Value Walk: https://www.valuewalk.com/2019/08/six-situational-mindsets-first-things-first/

About Author:

Dr. Mary Lippitt,  an award-winning author, consultant, and speaker, founded Enterprise Management Ltd. to help leaders with critical analysis.  Her new book, Situational Mindsets:  Targeting What Matters When It Matters was published last year with a Foreword from Daivd Covey. She can be reached at mlippitt@enterprisemgt.com or https://www.linkedin.com/in/marylippitt/

The Role of Mindsets in Leadership Development

Leadership development historically has two basic approaches:  focusing on personal development and targeting an individual’s job skills. These were enough in a relatively stable environment.  However, in a dynamic and fast changing world, leaders must be adept at dealing with changing environments. This new contextual approach to leadership fills the gap between personal and organizational mastery.

Wise leaders collect, decipher, weigh, and use information from all points of view to capitalize on opportunities and avoid being blindsided by trends due to narrow perspectives. A limited frame of reference creates blinders.  This lens is also called current driving Mindset. If we ignore some data, we open ourselves to unnecessary risk. This current driving Mindset is one of six Mindsets which enable you to assess opportunities, threats, and risks characteristic of your organization. Seeing the big picture ensures that your actions, plans, and decisions target the right outcome and address the critical challenges.    

Mental agility remains a key leadership practice. Leaders who have foresight to see reality will be more proactive. To put this in practical terms, a leader who elects to act when noticing a fire code violation offers more value than one who waits until they see flames. It saves lives, property, and opportunities for the future.

Leaders with ability to make decisions or judgments which balance short-term and long-term priorities play an invaluable role moving an organization forward. It is often the ability to change minds and gain commitment of others to produce results, depends on collecting and evaluating data from six Mindsets:

Inventing

The desire to develop new ideas, products, and services is high in the Inventing Mindset. This Mindset also seeks new internal synergies and cross-functional innovation.

Catalyzing

A focus on fast action to meet customer requirements, keeping existing customers and building the brand and beating the competition drive this Catalyzing Mindset.

Developing

Building infrastructure, creating policies and systems are the focus of the Developing Mindset as are se goals and establishing policies.

Performing

Process improvement, safety, and profit margins are in focus in the Performing Mindset. In this Mindset, quality, improving productivity and performance metric are in the forefront.

Protecting

The Protecting Mindset includes developing talent and building the internal culture of an organization. It also concentrates on succession planning, team collaboration, and engagement.

Challenging

The desire to test assumptions, create strategic options and adjust the business plan is primary in the Challenging Mindset. Discerning and spreading best practices, seeking new alliances and niches are key to sustainability.

Neglecting to comprehensively collect and examine data generates blunders.  Consider the fate of Blackberry, Kodak, and Blockbuster.

The writing was on the wall, but they failed to see it.  Their limited situational awareness blinded them to the need for change.  Situational awareness is the missing link in leadership development.  It provided leaders with the ability to see what is on the wall, around the corner, and within reach.  It is time we help leaders effectively read the realities they are confronting.

About Author:

Dr. Mary Lippitt,  an award-winning author, consultant, and speaker, founded Enterprise Management Ltd. to help leaders with critical analysis.  Her new book, Situational Mindsets:  Targeting What Matters When It Matters was published last year with a Foreword from Daivd Covey. She can be reached at mlippitt@enterprisemgt.com or https://www.linkedin.com/in/marylippitt/

Expanding Perceptions and Consensus for Change

Today, one of the most valuable talents is the ability to grasp fluid circumstances and gain agreement for a change initiative.   While there is an imperative to change, change creates stress, defensiveness, and resistance.

It is rarely greeted with unabashed enthusiasm (unless it is a pay increase).  So there is a temptation to demand that everyone gets on board, but this provides short-term acquiescence, not active support.

Instead of pushing change by fiat, we can take another approach and commit to expanding our perceptions and situational understanding.  It means accepting that we operate from a limited perception.  For example,  what we see as an uncompromising opportunity can also be seen by others as an ominous threat.  To reach consensus we must expand our perceptions by asking questions and listening without judgment.  We must be willing to see what others see.

For example, when you look at the following illustration, how many squares do you see?

The common answer is 16 or 17.  And they are correct since it is clear that every single box and the whole illustration are squares.  Yet, if we change our perception, it becomes apparent that groupings of four single squares also form a square.  We just did not see all 30 squares with our first look.   And if we did follow this typical pattern, we fall into the over 90% of the responders that answer 16 or 17. (See PUZZLERSWORLD).  This exercise points to the reality that when we find an answer we stop searching.  Now, this exercise was simple so it is easy to jump to a conclusion. However, when we try to gain agreement, we need to expand our willingness to investigate and understand the issue from all perspectives.   We must agree that instead of thinking we know everything, we accept the need to learn more.   A comprehensive exploration leads to the new insights, solutions and aha moments.

Searching beyond initial reactions,  considering other interpretations, understanding constraints and factoring in trends reveal perspectives. These insights highlight ways to build a consensus.  In my experience, sticking points and loggerheads usually focus on different aspects.  What is essential to one is not critical to another.  Probing reveals new insight and it paves the way for win-win resolutions. Open-ended questions reveal perspectives that can be discussed, modified or sequenced into a plan that gains active support. Consensus takes time and effort but it is delivering results.

Are you willing to look beyond your initial conclusions? If so, you must ask questions covering every facet.  Not only will this build rapport, it will surface new facts that can form the foundation for true consensus.

A version of  “Expanding Perceptions and Consensus for Change” was first published on 4 May 2018 at BizCatalyst360.

About Author:

Dr. Mary Lippitt,  an award-winning author, consultant, and speaker, founded Enterprise Management Ltd. to help leaders with critical analysis.  Her new book, Situational Mindsets:  Targeting What Matters When It Matters was published last year with a Foreword from Daivd Covey. She can be reached at mlippitt@enterprisemgt.com or https://www.linkedin.com/in/marylippitt/

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