Perceptual Errors
Perceptual Errors in your Organisation and how will you correct them.
1) Prototypes:-
Usually according to the group or profession you belong to, you are assumed to have certain characteristics, whether you have them or not.
In our organisation, we have a team manager who has an impression of being unapproachable and unfriendly, only because of his position. Due to this reason none of the employees approach him for help, even though it might hurt productivity. Since a few colleagues and myself have a habit of observing people’s behaviour, we knew all this fear is baseless. We didn’t hesitate in asking him for help and he was very pleasant and found solutions to our problems and made us very comfortable while he was at it.
So, in my opinion to reduce this kind of a perceptual error, its advisable to remember principle on similarity. Wherein, its not necessary that people from similar background are similar in nature. We should always see a person as a separate individual.
2) Horn Effect:-
According to this effect/error, when a person is found to have an undesirable trait, he is automatically assumed that all his traits must be undesirable, which may or may not be true.
To explain with an example, I have a colleague in my office who is precise and sticks to the point when having a conversation with a customer. Once one such matter was escalated considering that he sounded rude to the customer. And though he was cleared after been given some advice, because of that one event he is always considered to be deficient in other necessary traits, where he actually is pretty good. Inspite of his being very disciplined, it was assumed that he was late in his project, when the fact was the opposite!
In such a case, I think the person has to make an effort to clear such a generality. Also the appraiser should take into consideration all the facts of the person’s behaviour and progress, rather than assuming that he will be wrong always.
3) Hallo
1) Prototypes:-
Usually according to the group or profession you belong to, you are assumed to have certain characteristics, whether you have them or not.
In our organisation, we have a team manager who has an impression of being unapproachable and unfriendly, only because of his position. Due to this reason none of the employees approach him for help, even though it might hurt productivity. Since a few colleagues and myself have a habit of observing people’s behaviour, we knew all this fear is baseless. We didn’t hesitate in asking him for help and he was very pleasant and found solutions to our problems and made us very comfortable while he was at it.
So, in my opinion to reduce this kind of a perceptual error, its advisable to remember principle on similarity. Wherein, its not necessary that people from similar background are similar in nature. We should always see a person as a separate individual.
2) Horn Effect:-
According to this effect/error, when a person is found to have an undesirable trait, he is automatically assumed that all his traits must be undesirable, which may or may not be true.
To explain with an example, I have a colleague in my office who is precise and sticks to the point when having a conversation with a customer. Once one such matter was escalated considering that he sounded rude to the customer. And though he was cleared after been given some advice, because of that one event he is always considered to be deficient in other necessary traits, where he actually is pretty good. Inspite of his being very disciplined, it was assumed that he was late in his project, when the fact was the opposite!
In such a case, I think the person has to make an effort to clear such a generality. Also the appraiser should take into consideration all the facts of the person’s behaviour and progress, rather than assuming that he will be wrong always.
3) Hallo