Trying to Define “Perceptiveness”
Introduction
For many years now, investigations have been carried out to discover and converge on the best workable leadership style. Irrespective of what style the leader adapts, there were certain attributes a successful leader always needed to display and the three essential and indispensable attributes according to me based on experience were none else than Perceptiveness, Empathy and Direction (Vision)!! As regards empathy and direction (which depend entirely on vision), enough of research has been conducted and there is enough material available on them, but not a sufficient quantum of work that I know of, has been found in the area of “perceptiveness,” except those of David McClelland and Dr. Udai Pareek, however, in a different context. McClelland in his Human Motivation in the 1960s in a passing fashion mentioned about how important it was, to be perceptive, for a leader to be able to recognize the team-mates’ orientation toward “achievement,” “affiliation,” and “power” as motivators. Udai Pareek defined “perceptiveness” in his book Training Instruments for HRD and OD as,
the ability to pick up verbal and non-verbal cues from others…… perceptiveness can be used appropriately or inappropriately. If a person is too conscious of others’ feelings, he may inhibit his interactions. Similarly, a person who is too conscious of his own limitations will tend not to take risks. Effective perceptiveness can be increased by checking others’ reactions to what is said. A person who does not do this (in other words, if he is not open) may become overly concerned about the cues he receives.”
Students of behavioral psychology and even management may find this as an unexplored area for their research projects.
1. To know a person’s real motives or intentions, such as to be a perceptive and an astute judge of character in order to size another up. The practice of assigning numbers to identify people is the probable source of this expression. Although one’s “number” is a superficial designation, the expression connotes a deeper, more profound understanding of a person. Have [someone’s] number dates from the mid-19th century and is current even in jails today.
2. To sense negative feelings of others toward one-self; to perceive subtle manifestations of hostility, often racial. This phrase, obviously based on the dual dimensions of physical and emotional coldness, originated in the jazz world.
3. To be capable of differentiating between two things; to be wise, not easily fooled or duped or to be able to differentiate between two things that are superficially alike but essentially dissimilar; to be discerning, to have a keen mind; to know the real thing from a counterfeit. (As early as the 14th century, the expression, “Lo, how they feinen [middle ages English to mean feigning] chalk for cheese. [John Gower, Confessio Amantis 1393]) The implication is that “cheese” is superior to or finer than “chalk.” Thus, to be as “different as chalk and cheese” is to be as different as black and white, or day and night, even though chalk and cheese are similar in appearance. To go beyond appearances to try to perceive the true nature of something; not to be fooled by superficial glitter or plainness. This proverbial saying is attributed to the Roman Emperor, philosopher, and writer Marcus Aurelius (121–180): Look beneath the surface; let not the several quality of a thing or its worth escape thee. (Meditations)1
4. The thesaurus describes it as to be able to look through a millstone. To be discerning and sharp-sighted; to exercise keen powers of perception. A millstone is a large, opaque stone used in grinding grains. Therefore, the physically impossible challenge to see through a millstone can be met only figuratively by one of extraordinarily keen perception. The expression appeared in print by the mid-16th century. “Your eyes are so sharp, that you cannot only look through a Millstone, but clean through the mind.” (John Lyly, Euphues and his England 1680).
5. To understand the implications of another’s words or actions; to see beyond the explicit and be sensitive to the implications of subtleties and nuances; to get the underlying message, whether intended or not, regardless of the words that couch it or the actions that convey it. The phrase was once literal; methods of cryptogrammic communication included the use of invisible ink for writing “between the lines” or the practice of relating the secret message in alternate lines. Thus, “reading between the lines” was crucial to receiving the message sent. Today the expression often refers to an ability to sense an author’s tone or a person’s ulterior motives. People who have not the shrewdness to read a little between the lines … are grievously misled. (The Manchester Examiner January 1886).
I have listed different interpretations earlier, only to explain the different perspectives. What emerges from all that has been stated is a real-time practical definition for the attribute.
Perceptiveness is that attribute of a person which wakes him up, to the presence of signals that are aroused from the senses of sight, smell, touch, taste or hearing and that may relate to human personalities, to situations or even to inanimate or animate objects (experienced). It is eventually these signals that help the perceptive person, as a behavioral symptom to pre-empt happenings or responses, which in turn help in accomplishing the solutions, well ahead of time.
We begin by looking at the leader who has a queue of challenges awaiting him, not because he is expected to possess the power of magic to perform the miracles and overcome the challenges, but we expect him to act or respond in an unprecedented way and address the issues in an innovative manner. When and in what circumstances do we think, he would be able to do it? Not when he would take his surroundings for granted and would build solutions around sheer analyses of facts that have occurred in the past. He would perhaps have to comprehend the situation and make his observations of the dynamics of the situation, understand as to who were the people involved and how they would respond to certain stimuli and whether also the environment could have an impact, and so on. What if he does not do this and relies on the traditional ways of addressing the challenges? He would end up dealing with people and situations for a temporary phase and/or the “solutions” he finds, that would boomerang with changing times and leave a feeling of disinterest or disgust. This is well illustrated by Noriaki Kano, Professor at Tokyo Rika University in his famous “Kano’s Model of Customer Satisfaction,” wherein one could deem the team-mates to be the “internal customers.” Premonition comes by way of, or is an offshoot of that attribute, which we are calling “perceptiveness.” The leader in this case uses his premonition (his foreboding) and strategizes accordingly; and his strategy is based on his experiences, his understanding of the people involved and that of the situation and his understanding of the concerned environment, again factors which rely entirely on his “perceptiveness.” Figure 1 as follows describes the visual interpretation of “perceptiveness.” Visual Thesaurus (http://visualthesaurus.com/) has made a key attempt in simplifying the concept through this illustration. Each aspect needs to be comprehended before one is able to grasp in totality, the attribute, we are trying to analyze and or to bring about clarity in conceptualizing.
Figure 1 Visualising Perceptiveness
If we are to start comprehending the previous diagram, it would be convenient to take up one node at a time. In the clockwise direction if we try to explain each node, the very first node is that of “appreciation.” Here appreciation would mean recognizing the existence of a fact, situation, event or a person or persons. When we go to the next node, “taste,” it refers to the feel or the vibe that you collect from the fact, situation, event or a person or a group. All or some of your senses may be used to collect the information in both the aforementioned nodes covered. Now we come to the node of “discernment.” This happens based on your previous experiences, skills and knowledge acquired, which assist your collection of information further from the fact, situation, event or a person or a group in question; and in order to explore the area of differentiation from your previous such experience, your collection of information further gets intensified [if you are positively curious to comprehend] through all your senses only to eventually augment your repository of experience, skill or knowledge. The lines in the diagram which do not lead you anywhere are efforts of the same strokes which go out in vain and remain unanswered. There’s a certain section of your mind, which does not either comprehend or perceive the fact, situation, event or a person or a group.
The aforesaid description would continue to remain abstract, if an example is not provided here. There was an earthquake in the region recently, which devastated many lives, inhabitations and the surroundings. When it struck, in New Delhi, I was in my office on the second floor of the building, discussing an important project with my colleagues, absolutely focused and immersed in communicating certain points that were of valuable significance. I was in my revolving chair, behind my work table and my colleague with whom I was discussing had her seat next to mine, as the chairs in front were left vacant purposefully, for others to come and join the meeting that had just begun. Another colleague of mine was facing the wall and working on his system, with his back toward us. As we were talking, I found my chair had begun rocking and so were the furniture around. I stopped talking and within moments I declared that it was an earthquake, showing my colleague that the pictures on the wall were rocking too. The system screen that my other colleague was working on, was also swinging. “Yes!! Earthquake!” my colleague uttered. We were stunned and spoke little, as we heard the rumble underground. My colleague wanted to leave the building and I assured her that it was an earthquake resistant construction and unless the intensity was vigorous, there was no point. We waited in silence without panicking and the ordeal was over within a span of a minute, while it seemed to us, that it was unending. Notwithstanding the intensity of the earthquake and the wreckage that followed, the example highlights the fact that even though we were in the midst of discussions, we identified that articles were visibly shaking (appreciating) and then collected the feel, an experience that there was a rumble, using our hearing sense and a forceful vibration, using our sense of equilibrium (tasting) and connected the two courses of action with the sense of previous experiences [use of knowledge and skills] of earthquakes, to be able to blurt (discerning), “an earthquake!” To gather more information, we sought the help of the Internet and phone calls to establish the intensity of the quake. The mind, however, was reflecting on my experience of a 1962 earthquake2 which had struck Delhi, shaken the power supplies out, developed cracks in the wall and had our doors pounding as if someone was trying to break through. Technology was not as advanced then and we all left the house we lived in, for the next one hour, to come back and discover the losses. The relevance of quoting this incident was that my mind was groping to find out more…if this earthquake was as severe or more. Even though the intensity may have been far greater and the epicenter much closer, the state of shock was less as the discerning ability through experience had compounded. Perceptiveness had begun playing its role.
1 Meditations by Marcus Aurelius (translated into English in 1792 by Richard Graves).
2 epicenter was Buin Zahara (Iran) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1962_Buin_Zahra_earthquake