Perception Away From Reality

Remember Riya from our previous article? She was the one who had made a perception of bias towards women in offices because of behaviour of one boss which she generalized across bosses and workplaces.

So one day Riya was asked to arrange employee engagement activities at office for Diwali. Her boss Raj gave her the primary responsibility of the task while she also could ask for help and assistance from her colleagues Rohit and Priya. As the program got over, Riya saw few gifts which she was distributing, missing from the lot. As a token of participation, the organisation had arranged plants as gifts. Riya inquired about the miss and the office boys told her that many employees liked the plants and picked them up to take them home. Riya thought that it was a low value item, and they were in excess anyway, so there is no need to inform anyone about the incident. That evening, Raj shared his appreciation in front of the entire team about how Riya conducted the program so well and all the arrangements were efficiently done.

The next day Raj asked Riya about the reconciliation of the number of plants left after the program, as the management wanted the left over plants to be placed in their room to decorate it. Riya was nervous and shared the incident of the previous day with Raj. She hoped Raj would think in the same way she did. But her fears came true. Raj being the head of HR, was answerable for the miss at the end of it. He shared a very strong feedback with Riya.

Even though Riya disliked being in the awkward spot, she had to take Raj's harsh words. She disliked working there and she thought Raj was unfair as he didn't ask the other colleagues about the miss and only held Riya accountable. Riya failed to understand that it was her primary responsibility to make sure that she was vigilant. 

When we receive feedback, it is always well received? Do we take feedback objectively, as it is supposed to be about the behaviour and not the person? 

Feedback, it is received in all forms. It is not just oral or written. We receive feedback via body language also. In the corporate scenario, we are always observing our seniors and colleagues to give away feedback even in form of subtle cues. Like Raj always gave Riya the feedback of having a disciplined and orderly behaviour via his body language and his words too. His appreciation about her was for her efficiency. Then what led Riya to think differently? It was her mental conditioning. 

Riya couldn't get over the feedback for days together after that.. we will continue to see what she felt in the next blog.