{"id":1372,"date":"2012-03-31T07:58:05","date_gmt":"2012-03-31T07:58:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saasoft.com\/blog\/?p=1372"},"modified":"2012-03-31T07:58:05","modified_gmt":"2012-03-31T07:58:05","slug":"seeing-is-believing-or-is-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/?p=1372","title":{"rendered":"Seeing Is Believing or Is It?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Do we believe what we see or do we see what we believe?\u00a0 It sounds like a chicken-and-egg question – so what is the answer? One, the other or both?<\/p>\n

Before we explore further we need to\u00a0be clear about what we mean by the concept “see”.\u00a0 I\u00a0objectively\u00a0see with my real eyes\u00a0but I subjectively see with my mind’s eye. So to use the word see for both is likely to\u00a0result in confusion and conflict and\u00a0to side-step\u00a0this we will use the word\u00a0perceive<\/em> for seeing-with-our-minds-eye.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

When we are sure of\u00a0our belief then we\u00a0perceive what we believe.<\/em>\u00a0This may sound incorrect\u00a0but\u00a0psychologists know better – they have studied\u00a0sensation and perception\u00a0in great depth and they have proved that we are all susceptible to “perceptual bias”. What we believe\u00a0we will see distorts what we\u00a0actually\u00a0perceive – and we do it unconsciously. Our expectation acts like a bit of ancient stained glass that obscures and distorts some things\u00a0and paints in a false picture of the\u00a0rest.\u00a0 And that is just during the perception process: when we recall what we perceived we can add a whole extra layer of\u00a0distortion and can can actually modify our original memory!\u00a0If we do that often enough we can become 100% sure we saw\u00a0something that never actually\u00a0happened. This is why eye-witness accounts are notoriously inaccurate!\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>But we do not do this all of the time.\u00a0 Sometimes we are open-minded, we have no expectation of what we will see or we\u00a0actually expect to be surprised by what we will see. We like the feeling of anticipation and excitement – of not knowing what will happen next.\u00a0\u00a0 That is the psychological basis of entertainment, of\u00a0exploration, of discovery,\u00a0of learning, and of improvement science.<\/p>\n

An experienced\u00a0improvement\u00a0facilitator knows this – and knows how to\u00a0create a context where deeply held beliefs can be\u00a0explored with sensitivity and\u00a0respect; how to celebrate\u00a0what works and how and why it does; how to challenge what does not; and how to\u00a0create\u00a0novel experiences; foster creativity and\u00a0release new ideas that enhance what is already known, understood and believed.<\/p>\n

Through this exploration process our\u00a0perception broadens,\u00a0sharpens and\u00a0becomes more attuned with reality. We\u00a0achieve both\u00a0greater\u00a0clarity and deeper understanding\u00a0– and it is these that\u00a0enable us to make wiser decisions and commit to more effective action.<\/p>\n

Sometimes we\u00a0have an opportunity to see for real what we would like\u00a0to believe is possible – and that can be\u00a0the\u00a0pivotal event\u00a0that releases\u00a0our passion and generates\u00a0our commitment\u00a0to\u00a0act. It is called\u00a0the Black Swan effect\u00a0<\/em>because seeing just one black swan dispels our belief that all swans are white.<\/p>\n

A practical manifestation of this principle is in the rational design of effective team communication – and one of the most effective I have seen is the Communication Cell – a standardised layout of visual\u00a0information that is easy-to-see and that creates\u00a0an undistorted\u00a0perception of reality.\u00a0 I first saw it many years ago as a trainee pilot when we used it as the focus for briefings and debriefings; I saw it again a few years ago at\u00a0Unipart where it is used for daily\u00a0communication;\u00a0and I have seen it again this week in the NHS where it is being used as part of a\u00a0service improvement programme.<\/p>\n

So if you do not believe then come and see for yourself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Do we believe what we see or do we see what we believe?\u00a0 It sounds like a chicken-and-egg question – so what is the answer? One, the other or both? Before we explore further we need to\u00a0be clear about what we mean by the concept “see”.\u00a0 I\u00a0objectively\u00a0see with my real eyes\u00a0but I subjectively see with … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Seeing Is Believing or Is It?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,25,35,41,42,43,45,46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-design","category-information","category-reflections","category-stories","category-how","category-why","category-what","category-teach"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1372\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}