Articles

Do You Let People Inaccurately See You?

June 15, 2010 (Number 10) Have you ever been disappointed by people's reactions to you?  Do you think it might have anything to do with how they see you?  As a psychologist, I've found that people typically view each other through a variety of high-distortion filters. 

Those of you who've read an advance copy of my book will remember the story of a teenager who taught me a thing or two about challenging people's misperceptions.  Wearing a plain white T-shirt and jeans, he approached me at a bus stop in an impoverished Oakland, California neighborhood one hot August day many years ago.  As he began to ask me for something, I tuned him out, looked away and said I had no money. 

"Look at me," he said.  He spoke with such a quiet and simple dignity, it pierced right through my hardened shell of self-protection and bias.  I turned towards him and discovered a unique human being standing right in front of me.  As I found, he wasn't asking for money, but he did want my assistance.  And now that I was really seeing him, I naturally wanted to help him.  I gave him what he asked for.

Do people sometimes also try to put you in a box?  Are you ready to start challenging these perceptions — as this young man did with me — rather than succumbing to them?  If so, try these approaches:

• If you notice someone seeing you in ways that either obviously or subtly tend to diminish you, resist the pull to identify with those perceptions.  Instead, know those views say something about the other person, not about you.   

• When you encounter others' distorted views, immediately correct them.  For example, a VP of Human Resources unfamiliar with our programs recently implied we were similar to "other coaches."  "I'm concerned," I told her, "that you're not accurately seeing our work.  It's actually fundamentally different and more powerful than coaching."  From that point forward, our conversation got a lot more productive.

When you discover others' misperceptions of you, don't accept their reality.  Rather, state your reality and thereby protect your dignity and your power.

Dean Herman