Last week, I talked about Max DePree and how he said the first job of a leader is to define reality. This week, I wanted to elaborate on the concept because defining reality is harder than it might sound.
I want to bring Stephen Covey into the discussion. Have you ever read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People? It truly is one of my all-time favorite books. In 7 Habits, Stephen Covey talks about the subjective nature of reality. Covey says two people can look at the same reality, come to different conclusions, and both be right.
To illustrate the point, Covey includes the following image:
Apparently, this is an exercise used at the Harvard Business School. During the exercise, half of the class is shown an image which primes them to see a young woman, in the image above, and the other half is given an image that primes them to see an old lady.
Then, when all the students are shown the image above, and asked what they see, they end up arguing over whether it is an old lady or a young woman. Both sides can become incredulous even accusing the other side being being completely ridiculous.
The students use lots and lots of words to try to convince their counterparts of what they are seeing. Unless you have done this exercise, you have not been primed with regards to which woman you should see. So, let me try to explain how to see the two woman.
In the picture, the young woman is looking away. She has black hair, a feather extending from her forehead, and some sort of fancy white head-dress. With her looking to her right, we see a clear shot of the left side of her jawline. She also has a black necklace and a fluffy dressy shawl type thing. Can you see her?
The old lady is shown more in profile. The necklace of the young woman becomes the mouth slit of the old lady. The left ear of the young woman becomes the left eye of the old lady. The jawline of the old woman is the profile of the old lady's left nostril. What had been a stylish white head-dress becomes a more functional head cover.
Whereas the young woman is looking to her right, perhaps to see what all the excitement is about, the old lady is looking forward, towards the ground, with her chin tucked in, as though she were feeble or cold. Do you see it?
I have tried to explain the differences to show how futile words can be. If I have done an insufficient job, you can click here to be primed with the young woman, and click here to be primed with the old lady.
By the way, according to Wikipedia, "Priming is a technique whereby exposure to one stimulus influences a response to a subsequent stimulus, without conscious guidance or intention."
We are all the sum of our life experiences. These experiences have primed us to look at the world in various ways. And, we have all had different experiences. As such, we have all been primed to look at the world in different ways.
So, who was correct? The people or saw the young woman? Or, the people who saw the old lady? The answer is BOTH. Again, two people can look at the same set of facts, come to different conclusions, and both be right. Covey says it is not logical, it is psychological.
