Olawunmi Adegoke: Of Perception & Relationship Building

Many times, we already build a certain perception about other people; this is why it is very easy to judge a person by having just one encounter with them. So, when they do certain things, we draw certain conclusions based on our already existing perception of them.

Do you know why this is so easy to do?

We all have a mental picture of how we think life should be lived. So if other people don’t match up to that standard, we are quick to mentally put them in the position we deem fit.

A lot of times, we don’t want to appear judgmental, but then, we find ourselves complaining about how the other looks, talks, eats, or even communicates on social media. It is safe to say that most humans believe life should be lived from their own perceptive alone.

But the interesting thing is that, we all are uniquely created and have different personality type.

Learning from the book, People Style at Work by Robert Bolton and Dorothy Grover Bolton, there are 4 distinct People’s Style:

• The Drivers. Those who tend to be very controlling and possibly demanding. They know what they want and they aren’t afraid to let you know.
• The Analytics. They appear to be very intelligent, nerdy, or systematical and often pay close attention to the smallest details.
• The Amiables. They are always supportive and more emotional. You can count on them and their words, as they are very reliable and trustworthy.
• The Expressive. They generally have very high emotion and make decisions rather quickly. There are always excited and on the lookout to see what happens next.

Of all these styles, the book emphasizes that no ‘people’s style’ is bad in itself but of course, there can always be room to accommodate the excesses of any personality type. However, accommodating individual personality type does not mean that we should tolerate bad behaviour.

There should be an approach to how we engage in human relationship. This is by making allowances for others, knowing that no two individuals are the same. The way we all approach life is dependent on our intrinsic characteristics which is often influenced, over time, by cultural and environmental factors.

Having known this, it gives a better understanding of how essential our  accommodation of individual differences is for survival.

The better approach to living with people amicably will then be to appreciate each person’s uniqueness, seek for a common ground and live peaceably with them.

When people isolate themselves from freely relating with other personality type because they don’t want to get into quarrel or be misunderstood, they miss a lot. But they don’t know this. The funny thing is that there is always something to learn from every misunderstanding, but this will only happen if we are open to getting the best of our relationships.

No one is a monopoly of knowledge and no one has the all-time best behaviour. But we can learn from each other by relating freely without having a biased  and pre-conditioned mindset about others.