Perception and Perspectives

LOOK at the camels first and then read the message below...
This is a picture taken from directly above these camels in the desert at sunset. It is considered to be one of the best pictures of the year. When you look closely, you can see that the camels are the little white lines in the picture.
The black images you see are just the shadows!

This topic came to up during my team building session last week while I was doing the Helium Stick. And I didn't think of it while I was debriefing the activity. It's coming up as I've thought about those sessions more and more.

Here was the one situation that popped up during my session. The group members were all in grade 11 and 12 and were split pretty evenly between girls and guys. The activity was very loud and volatile. For the most part the guys were shouting at their female counterparts to stop messing up, just to put the stick down, and that they should just listen. At one point - one of the males (we're going to call him M) even left his spot at the stick, walked over, pulled a girl he believed to be responsible for the stick going up, and assertively (maybe with a dash of aggressive) showed her what she was doing wrong, what to do next, and finished by telling her that it was simple - why couldn't she understand. The girl (we'll call her J) giggled and turned away...apparently because she was laughing so hard...it was clear to me that it was a defensively reaction to being approached as abruptly as she was. J looked at me and laughed as she said several times over "this shouldn't be this hard".

What happens when our perception of truth or fact is wrong or different from the actual truth? How do we react to the difference? Can we shift easily or is it a rough transition? Does our bull-headedness shine through?

Look at the camels again. When what we initially believe to be camels (and it's no big deal...it's obvious which are the camels) actually turns out to be false - what is our reaction? We recheck and recheck the picture - we can't actually be wrong...can we? But the more we look at it - the more the black camels don't really look right - maybe a little bit worbbly or distorted...our perspective is starting to change. Look at the white lines in the picture - (for me...especially in the lower left quadrant). Shift your way of thinking. This is a bird's eye-view of camels during sunset.

Your perspective changes. You can almost feel the perspective change take place. You're moved to see the change. Suddenly what you perceive to be true is not true anymore...but not false. The story takes on a new meaning. You don't look at the camels the same way anymore - you know more, your awareness has grown and though we were originally wrong, there is something rich and wonderful about what we know now.

Back to my team building group - my guys kept their intensity up. M, accompanied by L and D, continued to yell at J and some of the other girls about not listening and for raising the stick. In their intensity - they even broke some of the rules of the activity. But they perceived J and a couple of the other girls at the barrier between them and success. One of the girls said that yelling didn't help her calmly put the stick on the ground - yelling made it worse. M emphatically responded: "Your emotions don't matter - this has nothing to do with your emotions!). M had a perspective and a perception of what was going wrong in the situation - J and a couple of the other girls had a completely different perspective. J's priority was participating and feeling good while she was participating. M, L, and D wanted to get the job done. Who's perspective was wrong? J perceived M,L, and D to be aggressive...M was perceiving J as being difficult and refusing to cooperate...\

I realize that M, L, and D come across as the bad guys in my anecdote. And watching it - I felt defensive for J. I didn't want her to be treated like the guys were treating her. But if I look at how M was perceiving J...I feel as though I have been in that place...not understanding why someone couldn't understand something that I found so simple. I don't know if I have ever been that aggressive but certainly I have been that intense.

Perhaps the correlation between the anecdote and perspective is not super strong...but I hope you catch a bit of my wave that I was riding. Communication breakdowns are often the cause of a difference in perspective or perception of the problem. Maybe if we take a bit more time before speaking our mind to really look at the picture or the problem (camels) we might be able to spot the difference...We might be able to spot that the camels that we saw on the outset weren't the actual camels...The camels were the little white lines.

Peace out.