Dealing with or Creating "Reality"?

“What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.”

Plutarch

How well do you think you deal with reality? We often talk as though we’re dealing with reality, right? Would it surprise you to know that this never happens? What’s in our head is not reality. We filter input the world gives us and convert it into something that has meaning to us. That meaning is based on multiple factors. Our background, experience, culture, education etc. give each of us our own unique view of reality. All of these things make up the mental models we have that create our virtual reality. Have you ever met anyone you agree with 100% of the time? Probably not. So when you have disagreements who’s view of reality is correct?

I know this may sound like a philosophical argument but there’s really nothing philosophical about it. It’s as practical as one can get. Understanding this concept is critical if you want to become an effective leader. By not coming to grips with it you’ll forever be at a disadvantage to those who do understand it.

The world is a blank canvas. It’s not until we start adding the paint of our own biases and beliefs that we create something that has meaning to us. So when we talk about reality, or our interpretation of reality, it’s necessarily limited to the way our own minds work. We might wish it to be some other way but I’ll bet you’ve already experienced how much the world cares about your wishes.

The world with all of its social, technological, economic and political complications are things we can understand only by thinking about them in the way we think based on who we are. Who among us has a strong grasp of all the complexities of the economy or society?

So if our sense of certainty on something doesn’t necessarily mean we’re right and how you happen to see a certain situation doesn’t obligate things to be that way, what do we do?

The most popular answer is to find others who believe what we believe. There’s comfort in agreement. Does that really do us any good though? Whole civilizations have disappeared, going to the bitter end believing what they believed was right based on the reality they created. Many companies have suffered a similar fate. Senior leadership believes the strategy they’ve implemented is correct and in line with reality only to watch helplessly as the world passes them by without as much as a nod.

We can ask for help from others, thereby expanding our view by adding different perspectives. However other’s perspectives are not guaranteed to be any more infallible than ours are.

Lee Thayer writes in his excellent book; Leadership: Thinking, Being, Doing - Arguments on whether something is true or not is, most often, a waste of time. It’s not about, “Which interpretation is the true one?” but “Which interpretation is going to get us where we want to go?”

We each try to understand the world based on the mental models we create. Leaders however create alternative worlds. New worlds. Einstein said; “Imagination is more important than facts.” Whose imagination and whose facts? The person who becomes the leader is the answer to those questions. Think about Steve Jobs, he lived in the same world we did pre-iPod, iPhone, iPad. Where did they come from? His imagination! Where did Mickey Mouse, full length animated movies, and Walt Disney World come from? Walt Disney’s imagination! Frederick Smith, founder of FedEx, only received a C on paper while attending Yale. The paper outlined an overnight delivery service based on a hub and spoke model using new technology called computers. He received a C because his professor said that while it was an interesting idea it needed to be feasible to get a higher grade.

Is your imagination up to the task? What do you imagine for your business? Do you have the passion and drive to create a new reality? Once you get over the idea the world is somehow obligated to behave as you believe it should, the insight that you’re the artist with the blank canvas will appear.

By acknowledging that you don’t know it all, or even a fraction of a fraction of it all, create a vision of what your business would look like if it was running at its very best. Then begin putting plans in place and track if they get you closer to your image or not. If they do great! If not you need to figure out where your plans are out of sync with what the world is really doing. You can never know what will happen in the future if you do “X”. You can only speculate. Measure and learn from your victories and failures and adjust yet again.

What real leaders do is create the reality they want from their vision of the future. What reality do you want to create?