Leave Your Ego at the Door

We often hear the phrase "perception is reality" - how and what people think about things is often more important than what really is. I found there's an exception to that, though. We often can't judge our own performance, particularly when it comes to "soft" skills. See, we can't hear ourselves as others do (seriously, we can't - we can't hear our own voices as others do. We hear it from inside our heads, they hear the sound that comes out of our mouths ) and we can't see our body language as others do.

I was reminded of this recently after cantoring (leading the singing) for a Catholic Mass. I've been away from singing for over a year and half and am slowly going back to "performing" in public. I had made a point to record myself so that I could hear what others heard and create a plan of action to correct myself based on that. As the music director and I discussed my work, we touched on the topic of singers perspectives of their work. Sometimes when you think you sound great, you didn't and sometimes you sound great when you think you were awful. Very hard to judge ourselves.

So, why am I musing on this today? I had one of those light bulb moments yesterday. You see, I'm often asked to train people with lots of experience whom management feels - and I've verified - are not performing well. Their perception is that they "know this" and "I do this all the time". Often it's important to record and role play, not to break people down but to help them recognize that perhaps their perception is not the reality and their performance has been suffering.

It takes a lot be able to put yourself on the line and change your view of your skills. In order to maintain your skills. It's important to leave yourselves open to the possibility that you are not doing as well as you think you are. Scary, right? It can play havoc with your sense of self and who you see yourself as. But without the ability to accept that you can always improve and that there is always something new to learn, you'll stagnate or go backward. So, you leave your ego at the door and recognize that other's perceptions may be your reality. Like my singing, your communication skills will be the better for it.