Conversation 12: Perceiving Reality

So far we’ve said that different people not only behave differently, they think differently. If you want to sell your ideas to people, you have to think as they do and communicate in a language they understand.

If you want to sell your ideas to people, you have to think as they do and communicate in a language they understand.

You don’t learn only from teachers or books. You can learn from rocks, flowers, and children.

People process information and reach conclusions at different speeds. People have different priorities in decision making. Even the same words have different meanings to different people. There is another source of miscommunication we need to address as well, one that stems from differences in perceptions.

Before we move on, may I first ask how you learned what you are teaching me now?

That’s a good question. You don’t learn only from teachers or books. You can learn from rocks, flowers, and children also. I learned about perceptions from my kids when they were toddlers. The oldest Topaz, was in his highchair banging his spoon and splattering food all over the place when he suddenly pointed at something and shouted, “Mine!”

I was puzzled as to why my son was developing “capitalistic tendencies” so early in life. Why was he so materialistic, so possessive? What was going on with his upbringing? Why wasn’t his first word love or give?

Later my second son, Shoham, did the same thing at about the same age. I learned that children all over the world shout “Mine!” at about the same age, in all countries and in all languages. I wondered why.

After working for years in changing organizational cultures, I realized grown-ups shout “Mine!” all the time too. After years of observation, I had the following illumination. A situation can be perceived in three different ways, or in any combination of the three. If you look at this diagram, you’ll see three circles labeled is, want, and should.

DIAGRAMA

The first perception of reality is the is. It’s the present reality. It’s right now. For instance, you are listening to me right now, however, maybe it crossed your mind that you should be working. Some little voice in the back of your mind is telling you what you should be doing, rather than what you are doing. That should is the second perception.

The third perception is what you want to be doing. While you are listening to me and thinking you should be in the office, you really want to be with your kids.

This sounds like a lot of internal conflict.

It is what you are doing versus what you believe you should be doing versus what you want to be doing—and that causes emotional pain.

Let’s explore some intersections of these perceptions: What happens when should overlaps is without want?

I do what I should do although I do not want to do it.

Right. Like taking medicine or going on a diet.

Now, how about the intersection where is overlaps want without should?

That is drinking or smoking. I do what I want although I realize I should not do it.

How about should overlapping want but not is?

Oh, I know that one. It is when I get upset with my teenage daughter: “I want you home by midnight. You should be home by midnight the latest. I am worried sick. Why are you not home by midnight?”

“Mine!” is where the three circles overlap: What is happening should be happening, and you want it to happen. When children shout “Mine!” they’re not being possessive. What they’re really saying is: “I want that” and since children don’t know the difference between want, should, and is, what they’re really saying is: “Since I want it, it should be, and it is.”

DIAGRAMA

In the first five or six years of their lives, children cry a lot because they’re learning to differentiate between the three perceptions. If you tell toddlers, “Don’t touch the oven; it is hot,” what do they do the moment you turn your back?

If we succeed in learning to appreciate the is, we enjoy the best time of our life.

Touch the oven!

They get burned and cry. They are starting to learn the difference between want and is.

If you tell children, “It is ten o’clock; you should go to sleep because you have school tomorrow,” what do they say? “I don’t want to go to sleep.” They are learning to differentiate between want and should, and to act according to should and not exclusively according to want.

When we grow up and experience a mid-life crisis, we realize that the should and the want are not that crucial. What is very relevant is the is. We learn to live with reality. If we succeed in learning to appreciate the is, we enjoy the best time of our life. We finally learn what we like and still have time to enjoy it. We put aside the shoulds and wants. We like the is, and enjoy the now.

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Mature love is present when we accept and love our partner in spite of.

But the best is to be in the state of “mine,” right?

Yes, and a way to see mine as happiness is when we are in love or, rather, infatuated. We say to the person, “You are mine.” What we are really saying is, “What you are, what you should be, and what I want you to be are one and the same. You are perfect.” But I don’t call that true love. I call that “puppy love” or “temporary madness.”

Temporary madness?

Yes, because after we get married we discover that what is, should not be, and what should be, we don’t necessarily want, and what we want, isn’t. In mature love we move from the over- lapping core of teenage love to mature love, which means accepting reality and imperfection.

DIAGRAMA

The French differentiate between loving and liking this way: You like because of; you love in spite of.

Mine does not equal love. It equals immature love. Mature love is present when we accept and love our partner in spite of.

The love of others starts with the love of oneself which means accepting your own imperfections first. You have to forgive yourself before you can forgive others.Thus, love grows from the inside out, not from the outside in. No one can give it to you. You give it to yourself first before giving it to others.

You have to forgive yourself before you can forgive others.

In India people often don’t marry out of love. They do not expect the three circles to overlap as in “Mine!” They marry out of commitment, not out of infatuation. In these societies love develops. The spiritual leader Master Chariji says love is a choice we make. It is like a muscle. The more you “exercise” it, the more you experience it.

In the West, with our romantic expectations, we expect “Mine!” to be continuous. When we don’t continually experience it, we get upset, we experience pain driven by unfulfilled expectations, and we ask for a divorce. In one of his lectures Rabbi Kushner, the author of When Bad Things Happen to Good People, tells the story of a modern couple who asked him to officiate at their wedding. They wanted to change the vows: Instead of saying “until death do us part,” they wanted to say something like “for as long as we love each other.” In this case, was there a commitment to nurture love, or an expectation to benefit from love regardless?

How, specifically, does this relate to management or leadership?

People confuse is, want, and should in all spheres of life. Look at some of our political writings: “All men are created equal.” Aren’t we confusing is with want and should? Are people born equal, should they be born equal, or do we want them to be born equal? Another example: “America is the leader of the free world.” Is it? Should it be? Or do we want it to be?

But why this confusion?

People with different (PAEI) styles perceive reality differently. For instance, which tendency do (E)ntrepreneurial types exhibit: want, should, or is?

They come from want.

They confuse want with what is: “Since I want it, it is.” That’s why typical (E)s will say, “We sold a million dollars’ worth of goods,” but when the (A)s ask where the contract is, (E)s might answer, “Well, the client is meeting next week to decide.” You see the (E) said “sold” as if it is, while in reality it was still in the realm of want and should. An (E) might say, “We are the leaders of our industry.” People are surprised. He continues, “You will see, we will be.” He confused the want of the future with the is of the present.

This reminds me of a manager who said at a meeting, “We are the best company in the industry.” When she was challenged, she said, “Well, we have all the ingredients to be the best.”

If you study history you will find many examples of wars conducted with this confusion. Many people have died because a leader was a dictatorial (E) who operated exclusively on the want perception, ignoring is and subordinating the should to serve the want exclusively.

Do you have an example?

Hitler, towards the end of World War II, was conducting the war on the map of Europe using his fingers to measure distances, ignoring reality, and executing messengers who communicated the bad news of that reality.

Who perceives that since something should be, it is, disregarding the want?

(A)s. If you ask an (A), “Do we have a solution to this problem?” He might say, “Yes, we do! We spent a million dollars on it, didn’t we?” You might challenge that statement by saying, “I know we should have a solution because we spent a million dollars, but that’s not the question. Do we have a solution?” When do we have a solution? Only if it is working.

Now tell me, which type perceives that what is, is? To hell with the wants and shoulds, they say.

The (P)s.

Yes, and who is continuously dancing around so that you can’t figure out if they are talking about what they believe is, what they want, or what they believe should be?

The (I)s.

(I)s are capable of understanding the differences because they don’t really have an exclusive process by which they come to reality. At the same time, they do not reveal their thoughts, since they want to read yours first.

That can create a lot of confusion.

The confusion stems from the fact that different people perceive the world differently, as we’ve discussed several times already. An (E) comes to a meeting and says, “We sold (is) a million dollars.”

The (A) responds, “Where is the contract?”

The (E) says, “We are going to get the contract next week after they decide.”

“No chance they will sign the contract” says the (A). “We are far too expensive. We are not competitive.” (should = is)

“Yes, but we should have the contract soon,” responds (E). “I love our product. How can they resist buying it?” (want = should be)

People continually confuse is, want, and should. When we only look at value, it is not a should, it is a want.

Perhaps the (I) intervenes and says, “Now let’s talk this over. What is the problem?”

Meanwhile (P) just wants to finish the meeting, get back to work, and avoid this interpersonal nonsense. “Listen guys! Do we have a contract or don’t we?” (is = is)

How does understanding these differences in perception help you with collaborative decision making?

Whenever I conduct meetings with companies that I’m coaching to Prime, I insist that the words is, want, and should be used in the (P) sense. So if people say, “We are the leaders of the industry,” they had better be speaking in (P) language. If they are not the leaders, I expect people in a meeting to say, “We want to be the leader of the industry, but we are not yet. What we should do in order to become the leader is…”

Do you see how I’m using the words now? If you sit in a meeting and listen carefully to the way people talk, you’ll find they continually confuse is, want, and should. Instead of saying, “I want to do something,” which might be uncomfortable to say, they say, “We should do that.”

I reserve the word should only for those situations where the value is higher than the cost. When we only look at value, it is not a should, it is a want.

Is there a particular sequence for using the three perceptions in leading change? Which one should we use first?

It’s like having three different colored lenses for your camera: the sequence in which you put them on determines the color of the picture you get. The usual mistake in planning is to start with want. It is assumed that planning can’t be successful without dreaming. As George Bernard Shaw said, “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

But if you start with unreasonable dreaming, insisting on something that does not and cannot ever work, it can become a nightmare. Somebody has to wake up and say, what is the reality? Planning should start with what is. It is like a medical diagnosis, which has to precede prescription. Once you have analyzed what is going on, you move on to what you want to do, from which you derive what you should do.

The way to make change is to first accept reality.

The sequence for planning then should be: what is the situation; in light of that, what do we want it to be; and in light of constraints on the want, what should we do. Then go change do it to create the new is. Avoid the childish trap of “since I want it, it should be, and it is going to be.” Arsonists can be “spoiled brats.” That’s how (E)s sometimes destroy what they’ve built. They stay attached to their big enterprise and the dream it represents. They refuse to recognize what is, clinging to the want perception exclusively. They’re not willing to budge, and as they refuse to recognize that their dream is not working, piece by piece they lose what they worked so hard to build.

The way to make change is to first accept reality. The way to move on is to accept where you are. As long as you fight your present state, you won’t have the energy to move toward the future. Once you accept reality, all your energy is available to make change. Thus, managing the change sequence, organizational therapy, must start with is.

The sequence for changing a situation should be: is want should new is.

If you confuse the sequences, you’re a fanatic. The philosopher George Santayana said that a fanatic, having misunderstood what the reality is, doubles, triples, and quadruples his efforts. That’s how he gets stuck deeper and deeper in the sand.

No change is possible without accepting reality first. For instance, you are not going to lose weight until you admit you’re overweight.

From what I understand of Arsonists they have a hard time accepting reality.

They do. Arsonists cling to dreams even after they become nightmares. Often, they wait and rely on miracles. The founding Prime Minister of Israel, Ben Gurion, when asked how Israel was going to survive an attack by the neighboring Arab nations, said: “Those that do not believe in miracles are not realists.”

But you told me Arsonists change direction all the time, remember? The big wheel turns back and forth while the little wheels get ground to dust. Now you tell me they do not change.

Arsonists cling to dreams even after they become nightmares.

The globe is not flat. Is it? If you keep going right you will end up on the left. The same is true for love versus hate, hot versus cold. If you have a fever, you feel cold. If you love someone very, very much, you have the beginnings of resentment. The same holds true with change versus stability. Have you looked at wheels turning very fast? They appear to stay in one place. The more it changes the more it is the same.

Nothing can be more permanent than a continuous temporary. (E)s change everything except change itself. The more things change, at a certain point, they don’t change. (E)s believe they make strategic decisions while, at best, their decisions have only a tactical impact. Too much change has the impact of no change. It is a continuous mess.

Arsonists might make many, many changes, except to the dream itself. So, although there are many changes, nothing really changes.