Being in Human Resources, unfortunately I have heard that multiple times, and each time it completely frustrates me. It typically means that no matter how much coaching we give someone, no matter how we try to turn a situation around to make someone successful, the person has already decided that they will not be successful.
Typically, their attitude has worsened, they misinterpret things to support their theory, and they have for many intents and purposes, sealed their own fate. A few real life misinterpretations:
- An employee didn’t get invited to an event after work because people were tired of hearing about how that person “was about to get fired.” The person came and told me that was evidence that the whole team knew the termination was eminent.
- The employee who did not get the annual bonus description document because of an IT issue which blocked the document from distribution to half the company’s employees, but was convinced it was sent to everyone else, and that was evidence that the company did not expect her to be employed the following year.
- The manager who came to tell me that they were going to be fired because the Vice President hadn’t spoken to him in a meeting, when that individual did not have anything to report out on.
It seems that so much energy is spent on looking for “evidence” to support their theory that other tasks get put aside, and a lot of time is spent chatting about their “discoveries” with co-workers – neither of which are particularly helpful if someone has performance issues.
That is not to say that there are not managers who do not provide Team Members feedback, either positive or negative, and that too is a bad thing as employees are left trying to get feedback by interpreting what “signals” they do get. But in these specific cases, feedback was being given, appropriately and in an unbiased fashion. In one case above, the employee was a great performer, but limiting his own growth because people didn’t see how he could lead a team if things got rough.
Perception is a strong thing. It completely affects the way we interpret things around us. But what most people do not realize is that we have power, superpower I like to think, over perception. We can determine how we will perceive things – either negatively or positively. Further, which tack we take – to perceive the positive or negative in things – becomes a habit. We all know the people who are “always negative about everything” or “seem to be lucky and always have everything go their way.”
On only a few occasions have I seen someone turn themselves around after having started down the path of negative perception. Each time however, the person made the deliberate decision to change their perception and start looking for positive reinforcement of improvement in their work and appreciation from their manager. Certainly not easy at first, it takes work. However, the more positive reinforcement they perceived, sometimes in very small doses to start, encouraged them to continue to be positive and take further steps in the right direction, which caused their performance to improve, and a new cycle had begun.
For those who just were not good fits for their jobs, their new attitude inspired them to look for something different, sometimes inside the company and sometimes in other companies. Either way, they were happier and taking positive steps to something better, rather than staying mired in the negative storm they created around themselves.
We all have this superpower over perception. Are you using yours positively or negatively? The one it impacts is you. So use your superpower for good. You’ll be happier and end up in a better place, and isn’t that how superpowers should be used?
