It's all about perception, not reality

Given the ongoing inability to get access to the Internet the laptop purchase has a temporary home with Layabout and family.  I think the term laptop is a misnomer and it should be called a desktop.  A portable desktop.  My idea of what a laptop is against the reality is two different things.  A little like the weather.  It's April and the temperature has dropped, it's also been raining.  Rain makes sense but to wake up and find there is frost on the grass is quite a different expectation.  It's certainly all down to expectation.  The laptop is just like frost in April, it's out of place with expectations.  Unless there is something wrong with my perceptions.  I don't know is all I can say for now.

I've been thinking recently about a subject which would be good to write about.  Good because I find it easy.  However at the same time I have wondered whether I am qualified.  It's a bit like a discussion I've had with L & B man.  He has advised about a manager who has bought into play a new way of working.  This is in line with what is called LEAN.  LEAN is not just a management method, it's a completely different way of seeing the world in a workplace situation.  The individual who had bought in this LEAN methodology I am sure had not been personally trained by the Japanese, he had used it before in a different organization.  I'm guessing what he did was sell it when he had an interview.  This is called 'solution selling.'  Where as an interviewee you bring into the arena a solution the interviewers get hooked on.  It's done by researching an organization, finding out what the problems of the organization are and then when attending the interview present a solution to their problems.  Hence solution selling.  In the end it gets the job, and is likely to be something which more middle to higher managers could do.  For management is a woolly thing, anyone can do it, but can anyone do it well?  I think not.  However, everyone does think they do it well.  The individual in question sold himself in the interview and pointed out they had experience in bringing in LEAN management methods in other organizations.  They sold themselves therefore on a second front, as a pseudo expert.  Further anyone into LEAN management speak like to think they know it all.  There is so much to it, it would be impossible to know it all, however, management is more than just understanding what a Zeitgeist movement is, it's about handling people as well as many other softer, woollier skill sets.  I've really detracted here from the subject I was thinking of writing about because it is nothing to do with LEAN, and this was just an example.  Further I don't want to actually say what it is.  It's like telling everyone you are going on a diet to lose weight, immediately telling a host of people means you're doomed to failure.  Not that I'd go to a weight watchers club and say I was there for the fun of it, which would be a bit perverse.  So I'll not say what it is I want to write about but will skirt around the subject.

So using all these examples.  The interview panel perceived an interviewee was capable of being a manager because he sold them a solution but the reality was he probably had little training at all and might of read an article in the Reader's Digest.  The result was he got the job and a lovely salary to go with it.  He also gets to play in an organization at showing he knows something, when he knows his perception of something, not the actual thing (LEAN).  When I bought my laptop come tabletop computer my view was of a device I could use on the Internet, a device which was portable and with a keyboard which lent it to typing more than any other item available on the market.  I'd hoped it would not be too heavy either.  The reality against my perception is a kitchen sink with taps on it.  Lastly, we may all consider April as a Spring month the reality is we are put out of place because it's not what it says on the tin.  Not so far anyway.  These three scenarios have all produced mismatches and so likely disappointments.  The only way to combat these items now is to amend those perceptions which were in place at the start. 

Therefore it is about how we see the world, I perceive therefore I see.  When it should be I see and now I perceive.  If anyone has understood this then they deserve a medal.  Something wrapped in silver foil with chocolate on the inside.