What can you and I learn about ourselves and our organizations from a 20th century French writer? 

I have to admit, I’ve never read one of Anaïs Nin’s books – her genre isn’t my thing. But since the first time I read this quote many years ago, I’ve thought about it hundreds of times and used it in countless client conversations.

Unfortunately, there’s no such thing as a bias-free look at anything. A lifetime of input from parents, peers, media, experiences, and a host of other things has helped us craft a finely-honed filter – a “filter of me” if you will. And we use that filter to examine everything we come in contact with – including all the things we encounter at the office, shop, or factory.

So, the question is, even with our “filter of me” firmly in place, how do we “see things as they are”?

Make “truth-seeking” the highest priority. Gather as many data points as possible. Use objective measures. Capitalize on the value of individual “filter of me” perspectives. They’re not necessarily wrong, they’re just not bias free. Use all these in aggregate to accurately construct a bias-free representation of the situation at hand.

Recognize the cognitive biases that can cloud our perception of the situation.

• Confirmation bias – the tendency to listen more often to information that confirms our existing perception.
• Anchoring bias – the tendency to be overly influenced by the first piece of information that we hear.
• Misinformation effect – the tendency for memories to be heavily influenced by things that happened after the event itself.
• False consensus effect – the tendency to overestimate how much people at-large agree with our own beliefs, behaviors, attitudes, and values.
• Halo effect – the tendency for an initial or already existing positive impression of a person to lend credence to their impression of a situation.

Get an outside perspective. Sometimes you can’t see the forest because of the trees. At that point, it’s good to get some outside perspective. Someone who isn’t mired in months or even years of history with the situation. Someone who has no “horse in the race”.

One of my most enjoyable tasks every month is writing this post. I want to bring value to you as a business leader and to your organization at large. I want you to succeed whether we do business or not.

But, to be clear, I want to do business. I want to be top of mind when you need someone to help you do better work, solve previously unsolved problems, and make more money. If you’re slightly curious, teetering on the fence, or ready to go tomorrow, let’s have a conversation. Make a call or shoot me an email today.