The Perceiver

Prefer to Listen?

I was twenty-two at my very first performance review. My manager, Gretchen, asked if there was a fun restaurant I'd been wanting to try. We sat by the water, somewhere fancy enough that I kept my posture straight, and the review turned into a conversation about my future. I don't remember a single thing we measured. I remember that she cared.

I've been thinking about Gretchen because of a phrase I've heard my whole career: perception is reality. I kinda hate it. Who decided that someone's quick impression of us gets to count as truth?

And yet. I've watched good people get re-measured by new leaders and new eyes and come up short, with no change in their work or their worth. I'm only now getting free of other people's opinions. "What other people think of me is none of my business" has become a centering thought. But what happens when the person whose business it isn't ends up in charge of decisions about you? I haven't figured out this dance.

Here's the only solace I've found, and it required flipping the question. I can't control how I'm perceived. But I am also a perceiver. Somewhere, someone's reputation is partly in my hands, the way mine is in someone else's. So maybe the assignment was never managing my image. It's this: be the one you'd want in charge.

I'm practicing going to positive intent first, before the story in my head writes itself. Asking 'what did you mean?' instead of assuming. And being the champion. Because someone once believed in me beyond what I believed for myself, and it rearranged what felt possible.

Sitting up straight by the water at twenty-two, I didn't learn what a performance review was. I learned what it feels like when the person in charge looks for the best in you.

I spent years people-pleasing, and the return on all that energy was terrible. This is different. Pleasing tries to manage the perceiver. Practicing tries to become a better perceiver.

I still can't tell you whether perception is reality. But the perceptions I hold of other people are mine to keep clean. That part is my business.

Thought for the Week: Whose story is partly in your hands right now? A direct report, a coworker, a kid. What would it look like, this week, to be the one you'd want in charge?