Examine Your Perspective

“People don’t always act as they say they will” On the surface its someone not showing up on time. It is the service provider not delivering what they promised. It is the product you bought from Chinatown not meeting your expectations after you thought you had a bargain. There is more to what meets the eye.

Everyone meet Martin. Martin is one of the hardest working people I have met in my years of Coaching. He was rightfully promoted to an Executive position. With the promotion came an increase in salary and benefits. His per diem was more than most people’s salaries. Life was good. His friend who had returned from Canada started a lucrative chicken business at the time in Nakasongola. He saw this an opportunity to increase his earnings. He was heeding to something Coach Sudesh had been preaching, “Your employer is responsible for how much they pay you but you’re responsible for how much you earn” Martin invested UGX100,000,000 over a period of six months. Three years later he has never received a profit from the business that is run by his friend who settled in Lugazi having lived in Canada.

Everyone looks at Martin as the beacon of Corporate success. What they don’t know is: Martin has lost trust in humanity because of making a loss of UGX100,000,000. He thinks all Ugandans are crooks including the team he leads. He has developed arbitrary rules on how he deals with people which is affecting his leadership at work.

Loss in our personal lives whether it be money, a relationship or a major disappointment with a friend can change our perspectives deeply. Depending on one’s state of mind at a particular time, you may be biased in our method of interpreting other people’s behaviour. Like Martin the degree to which we believe we are correct in defining another person’s motives and attitudes is not related to the actual accuracy of our belief.

Taking marriage as an example, some of the misunderstandings that beset a marriage have their roots in the rigid thinking that underlies prejudice of all kinds. The biased expectations, observations, and conclusions that form a prejudice reflect the frame of mind known technically as a “negative cognitive set.” When a husband has framed his wife within this set, for example, he will interpret virtually everything she says or does in a negative way.

Prejudice can twist our interpretations not just of others but of ourselves. There is a form of prejudice in people with low self-esteem; in this instance, the target of their prejudice is themselves rather than others. Such people are intensely concerned with the meanings of their interactions with other people, especially with what others think of them. But because their self-esteem is low, they tend to apply their preconceptions and make unjustified negative interpretations of how others regard them.

Back to Martin, he is depressed because of the loss of UGX100,000,000. Depressed people are likely to interpret ambiguous events in a way that reflects badly on themselves.

Not all men are liars. Not all women are gold diggers. Prejudices need to be examined. While I empathize with Martin he has no business treating his team in a judgemental way because of the loss of money.

What distinguishes distressed marriages, work relationships and friendships from satisfactory marriages, work relationship and friendships is not so much the absence of pleasant experiences but that interpretation.

A change in perspective brings a change in how to approach healthy relationship building.