This posting written for Discuss HR where it was published last week.  I thought you might like to read it, too.

I don’t know about you, but Maria Miller wasn’t prominent in my thinking until the media pounced on her recent apology to the House of Commons.  I listened to her apology on the news and, without any background knowledge to guide my opinion, well… it sounded direct and sincere to me.

Others were not so easily satisfied.  Critics described it as “perfunctory”, “arrogant” and insulting”.  The gloves were off.

On the receiving end of others’ perceptions

If you’ve ever had any kind of feedback from your constituents, you’ll know it can be hard to square your own intentions with the way others see you.  This is true whether you’re a leader looking at a 360 degree feedback report, a senior executive looking at this year’s staff satisfaction survey or client feedback, an HR Director absorbing staff perceptions of your department or even someone who’s taking a pasting from the boss.

At times, for example, you just don’t recognise yourself in others’ descriptions of you.  Far from intending to (fill in the gap), your intentions were quite different from those described.  You thought you were giving clear direction to your team, for example, but they thought you were over-bearing and arrogant, failing to take account of the ideas of team members.  Or maybe you know you’ve implemented a sound response to last year’s client feedback and still there’s no change in this year’s feedback:  clients are so sure your company is taking three days to dispatch orders even though you know you’re only taking two.

It doesn’t help that so much feedback is couched in judgements, as Maria Miller has learnt.  Who gets to decide what constitutes “perfunctory”, “arrogant” and “insulting”?  It’s hard enough to know that others are unhappy with aspects of your performance.  It’s hard enough to know, even, that they have just cause.  Somehow, the use of judgement makes it all the more personal, as if somehow it’s you who are flawed.  Even if your intellect can see the difference between what you actually did and how others view it, you may still struggle emotionally under the full force of others’ feedback.

The map is not the territory

You may or may not know about the work of Alfred Korzybski, who was a Polish-American philosopher and scientist, born in 1879.  Korzybski made the case that our knowledge of the world is limited both by the human nervous system and by the limitations of language.  He saw dangers in confusing our perceptions of reality with reality itself, a concept which he neatly summarised in the phrase “the map is not the territory”.

I first came across this phrase in 2002 when I took a practitioner course in neuro-linguistic programming (also known as NLP).  Participants in the programme were introduced to this phrase as a useful presupposition and found it truly liberating.  “Oh!  I can stand back and ask myself if I’m confusing my map of the world with reality itself!”  Recognising the difference between their conclusions about colleagues or loved ones and what had actually happened helped people to clear up old misunderstandings, slights and hurts without even having to talk with the people with whom they most struggled.

Of course, recognising that the map is not the territory also freed some people from the weight of others’ perceptions of them and from a compulsion to please.  “Yes, my boss/colleagues/subordinates/parents/sibling (etc.) view me in a negative way but they’re confusing their judgements with reality itself.”  With this in mind, it seemed easier to hear others’ feedback and – at times – to dismiss it.

Over the years, I have seen many men and women in leadership roles grapple with this difference between map and territory when they have been on the receiving end of some kind of feedback.  It can soften the blow of negative feedback, for example, to realise that people’s perceptions of your leadership style may or may not be accurate.  But this is not where the story ends, as Maria M. can surely testify.

The perceptions others have of you (or of your department, or of your latest change management project) may be wholly inaccurate and still, they ARE perceptions.  In this lies both the challenge and the opportunity.  The fact that others’ perceptions are inaccurate does not mean there is no work for you to do.  No.  It simply means that the nature of your work is not to change the way you do what you do but to do something different about the way you communicate with others or even to choose to hang out somewhere new.  I’ve known talented people, for example, who have made great strides in their career after moving.  Why?  Because new colleagues form impressions based on current experiences so that their perceptions are not contaminated by history.

Managing your reputation

Is there somewhere where you need to manage your reputation or that of your department or organisation?  Is this even an idea that you feel comfortable to embrace?

One way to find out is by asking yourself, do I know how people see me (or my department, organisation or other entity)?  And do they see me the way I want them to?  If you don’t know how your key constituents perceive you it’s time to find out.  If you don’t like the way others perceive you, it’s time to get curious – what perceptions do you want others to have?  And what can you do to change others’ perceptions?

First, though, if your name is Maria or if you’ve recently been on the receiving end of more feedback than you can easily handle, you may want to balance taking action to move forward with a good dose of compassion for the position you find yourself in right now.  It is the quality of compassion, as much as the quality of courage, that is going to see you through.