It’s an old saying but I remember the comedian Flip Wilson dressed as a woman, Geraldine, who shamelessly flirted with Tim Conway and Burt Reynolds, proclaiming that “what you see is what you get!” I use that line quite a bit in my training programs to explain how our body language can suggest confidence or lack thereof.
Recently at a presentations skills training program I teach (my day job), that phrase was updated to “what you expect is what you get!” I worked with a group of future leaders for one of the country’s largest armed forces. Their perception of an incident really surprised me and I thought of Flip Wilson and Geraldine.
In this instance, the program called for each attendee to present a brief program utilizing the tools learned and then receive feedback from two peers plus me on how well the tools were implemented. The presenter was a young engineer of Asian descent. maHe did an outstanding job and when one of his classmates gave him feedback, she noted what that he appeared very “American” and understood the language better than she did. It was an odd comment as she obviously thought she had given him a compliment.
Within minutes there was a buzz that her comments were racist as she is Caucasian. Not wanting this to turn ugly, I asked the reviewer about the intent of her comments. She replied that she felt his presentation was extremely patriotic and how well he explained the acronyms in his program – thus the comments about being American and knowing the language. Granted her comments were awkward but they were certainly not intended to be racist.
The group had immediately interpreted her comments to be racist even though her demeanor and body language did not communicate that. I remember my mom telling me, if you look for trouble, you’ll always find it. Another way to say that is reality is what you perceive. This felt the same – the group expected to be talked down to due to their low rank, so they interpreted a very awkward comment as malicious. What you expect is what you get…
Perhaps because I tend to be an optimist, I found this incident distressing. Can our future leaders not discern malice from misspeaking? Why did no one else clarify the situation? How did we move to a group think that assumes guilt without even asking a question? In the next few weeks, I’ll take a look at behavior that’s become acceptable. I’d love to hear your thoughts on what you see as well…
- Allison Blankenship, http://www.allisonspeaks.com, http://www.UpsideTheBook.com
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