Perceptionicity: A Straight Line to Productivity

By Erwin Aguayo Jr.

Erwin Aguayo Jr. coined the word perceptionicity to help executives, human resources professionals, and managers uncover organizational perception gaps.
In this guidebook to achieving business objectives, he reminds everyone that what usually prevents companies and their stakeholders from achieving goals is the way they think. Learn how to:
align the perceptions of all the people in your organization with your vision;
create an atmosphere where people understand how their jobs link to larger goals;
recognize and overcome obstacles that stand in the way to success.
Get solutions to problems you thought were unbeatable with the lessons in Perceptionicity.
Perceptionicity is a cogent reminder that an organizations soul is the ultimate predictor of its success. How every stakeholder understands and embraces the companys vision is more important than the color of the stationery, or the make of the cars it leases, or the glass and steel structure in which it is housed, or the trendy titles an organization assigns to its executives, or whether every t is crossed or every i is dotted Perceptionicity is for every person who wants to give up pretense for substance.
Antone Aboud, Ph.D., management consultant

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jul 30, 2010
• ISBN: 9781463466695

Erwin Aguayo Jr.

Erwin Aguayo Jr. has worked in the media and consumer products industries for thirty-five years as a general manager and marketing executive. He is the former president and CEO of Media Arts & Images, where he managed numerous Telly Award winning teams and received a NIST award. As CEO of Intrinzix Technologies, he was granted four U.S. patents in communications.

Book preview

© 2010 Erwin Aguayo, Jr. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 09/16/2015

ISBN: 978-1-4490-7535-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4490-7536-1 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4634-6669-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2010901287

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Perceptionicity™ is an Erwin Aguayo, Jr. Trademark

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

PART ONE: BETWEEN THE EARS

ONE: Discover Perceptionicity

Definition of Perceptionicity

Perceptionicity A New Communication Art

TWO: Out of Nowhere

Brainy Mind

Perceptions, Attitudes and Opinions

THREE: The Perception - Behavior Link

How to Win a Game of Trivial Pursuit

FOUR: Causal or Acausal Behavior

Seven Tips for Getting Off Square One

PART TWO: REAL OR NOT REAL

FIVE: Spooky Science

The Perceptual Cycle Phenomenon

Priming

SIX: Masters of the Obvious

Three Reasons for Becoming Masters of the Obvious

SEVEN: All in the Family

Family Secrets

PART THREE-THE ART OF PERCEPTIONICITY

EIGHT: The Basics

Build Surveys

Analyze Perceptions

NINE: Perceptionicity Surveys

TEN: Perceptionicity Analysis

ELEVEN: Cultivating Perceptions

The Language of Your Vision

Five Principles for Cultivating Perceptions

TWELVE: The Language of Your Vision

Create the Language of Your Vision

THIRTEEN: Embed/Maintain Perceptionicity

Primers and Priming Channels

Rewards

AFTERWARD - PERCEPTIONICITY IS FUN

RESOURCES/WORKS CITED

APPENDIX

This book is

dedicated to my wife, Regina. She has supported my efforts for over 43 years and particularly in the last two years that it has taken me to develop and write PERCEPTIONICITY.

I love you!

Acknowledgements

Saying THANK YOU is not often done timely enough to really recognize the people who make an impact on our lives. This is my opportunity to change the trend. In these pages there is insufficient space to name everyone who has contributed to my life. So I offer this sincere thank you to my mother, Alicia, my sister, Ivette, my children, Andy and Angeline, the rest of my family, associates, clients and friends, and the unnamed people who have touched my life and helped me grow.

Specifically, I thank all those who have helped me create and write PERCEPTIONICITY. Without your participation, this endeavor would have been arduous and lonely. Your advice, encouragement and guidance have been indispensible to a regular guy like me. Hopefully, my efforts meet your high standards

Antone Aboud, Ph.D., President/Antone Aboud Associates, Inc. (Advisor)

Tom Adams, President/Embrace Aging, Inc. (Advisor)

Mary E. Barnes, League of Utah Writers (Editor)

John Kolb, President/Wizard Stones, LLC (Advisor)

Maria Mouratidis, Psy.D. Licensed Psychologist (Advisor)

Chad Nixon, Creative Director/Perceptionicity Institute (Advisor)

The AuthorHouse Team:

Sara Kelley, Team Tiber/AuthorHouse (Design Advisor)

Mike Farrell, Team Tiber/AuthorHouse (Author Assistant)

Kelly Barrow, Art Director/AuthorHouse (Art Advisor)

Zach Harbison, Publishing Consultant/AuthorHouse (Publishing Advisor)

Timothy Reeves, Marketing Consultant/AuthorHouse (Marketing Advisor)

Jane Rubeck, Book Consultant/AuthorHouse (Book Advisor)

Foreward

Why do you do what you do? How aware are you of what influences your behavior? Psychologists have been trying to understand behavior for centuries. It is not an accident that psychology and business have friended each other. Business is concerned with deliverables, with productivity, with integrity, and ultimately with the bottom line -- financial gain. Since business, which is comprised principally of human capital or human resources, understanding how to select, promote, and motivate employees’ behavior to produce and to exemplify the mission and vision of the company is critical to the bottom line.

There are countless books on the shelves about business, management, leadership and the like. PERCEPTIONICITY is just not another one of those business books. In this book, Mr. Aguayo has ambitiously and artfully taken on a subtle, but powerful element that contributes to our behavior – our perceptions. Perceptions are usually just below our level of conscious awareness, yet can significantly affect our thinking, emotions, and our behavior. We believe what we perceive, and we believe our perceptions without question. As you read this book, you will become keenly aware of your own perceptions and how all of the perceptions flying around affect the behavior of your organization. You will appreciate the value of learning how to manage perceptions and will learn a practical skill set for harnessing and aligning perceptions.

As a manager, learning how to assess the perceptions of your employees has the capacity to improve employee morale, retention, and productivity. As a leader, knowing how employees perceive your company and your company’s culture can provide you with important information about the strengths and areas for growth of your employees, your managers and your company. Further, PERCEPTIONICITY offers you a framework and useful tools to assess your employees’ perceptions and to create ways of aligning the perceptions of the employees with the mission and vision of your company. Aligned perceptions facilitate teamwork, consistency, a sense of ownership and satisfaction, and the delivery of a quality work product.

In PERCEPTIONICITY, Mr. Aguayo, through his extensive corporate leadership experience, illustrates the theory of perceptionicity with clear and concrete examples to which any seasoned manager could relate. In the third part of the book, a practical method for applying the theory with formulated techniques is offered such that the principles of perceptionicity can be flexibly implemented into your workplace.

Corporate America has become increasingly competitive, demanding, and under scrutiny, especially in challenging economic times. Developing sophisticated methods for enhancing employee performance at the preconscious level of their perceptions has the capacity to propel your company into the lead. After all, it is about perception…

Maria Mouratidis, Psy.D.

Psychologist

Introduction

As humans we have the ability to see with the mind’s eye—to have a perceptual experience in the absence of visual input. ~ John J. Ratey, M.D., A USER’S GUIDE TO THE BRAIN

Before you get into reading PERCEPTIONICITY do something for yourself. Take a moment right now to close your eyes and imagine that you’re speaking to ten, twenty or hundreds of employees. Use whatever numbers work for you when speaking in public. Once you have the number down, look around create their faces, the facility, the décor, the sounds, the fragrances, the temperature, and any kinds of accruements you think necessary.

Now imagine yourself speaking to them with an uplifting message similar to the one President John F. Kennedy gave at his January 20, 1961 inaugural. You know the one.

It started like this,

We observe today not a victory of party but a celebration of freedom— symbolizing an end as well as a beginning— signifying renewal as well as change.

Continued with,

And so my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you— ask what you can do for your country.

Finishing with,

Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world ask of us here the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you.

For the purpose of this exercise, you can borrow any well-known passage. Stand up; say it out loud; get a feel for it. Let your mind’s eye work, see those faces, the facility, the décor, and hear the sounds you create in your mind.

Creative visualization is one of those exercises great amateur or professional athletes use to enhance their performance. It’s a technique of using imagination to visualize specific behaviors or events occurring in life. The techniques have been proven in sports and are part of modern sports psychology. Visualization is not just used in sports; it is also used in science and education; as well as in visual information or knowledge transfer and product development.

Visualization, which I call priming is one of the techniques you will learn to use with your employees. My goal is to provide you tools so that you can align the perceptions of all the people in your organization with your vision. The business of doing business doesn’t always allow us to identify every possibility where our people could be compensated for good behavior. Having perceptions in alignment is the best way to create the working environment that stimulates people to do the right thing because it is the right thing to do, regardless of compensation.

Every company depends upon its employees’ judgment. You cannot be around all the time to make certain that they are doing the right things or making the right decisions. As an owner, CEO, department head, manager, or supervisor, you have already learned this lesson. What you can do is create an atmosphere and cultivate an environment where your people perceive the value of the company, its vision, and the linkage between their roles, their success, the company’s vision and the company’s success.

Perceptions are the human outputs or outcomes of the act of perceiving. They come from different sources not just from observing the outside world through the physical senses. While still in our mother’s wombs, some of our perceptions were formed.

Within our DNA are established protocols inherited from our parents and their parents about how our brains will deal with incoming data. We can look at it as a set of predetermined standards set by our genetic makeup. Recent studies of the human brain conclude that thoughts are biological things that travel from one neuron to another energized not by electrical means but by chemical resources. Humans think in six areas of their brains at once, the conscious level is only one level.

We have also leaned that emotion is important in forming new neural connections in the brain. One of the most fascinating things to me is that human brains see in images interpreting these images as reality, even if they are not. Sound familiar to you?

After thirty-five years of managing people, I have come to the realization that, right or wrong, perceptions more powerfully affect human behavior than pure information or knowledge. People can have all the information and knowledge they need to make the right decision, however their intuition, born of their perceptions, not information or knowledge, determines the value they place on their behavior. It is this value judgment that determines what they will actually do or how they will behave.

Reading this book is a discussion between you and me, and an intimate conversation between you and you. Try to remember your last A-hah moment. When was the last time you had one? An A-hah moment is when you experience surprise, wonder, pique, triumph, or puzzlement. It is often expressed as simply hah. It is the moment when the light goes on in your head and you come to realize something new is important to you. It may or may not be new to the world but at that moment it is new to your perception of the world. This will be one of those moments.

Over the pages of this book you will be introduced to the perceptionicity concept, and some of the science that will make it easier for you to understand the whole concept. Included in the book are some powerful tools that will help you create or enhance productive on the job behavior. You will learn to harvest perceptions by using these auditing, analyzing, and cultivating tools.

Additionally, you’ll learn how to create perceptions-embedding systems. You’re going to link your employees’ perceptions of themselves, their roles, and their values to your company’s values, with these embedding systems. And, from top to bottom, align your employees’ perceptions with the company’s vision, mission, and culture.

Like you, I have read many business books that claim the techniques they teach are quick and easy. Up front, I am going to say that none of what you will learn is quick, easy or fast because it takes work. People’s minds have to be exposed to new ideas in order to change their resulting behavior. Your task will be to help your people replace their old perceptions with new ones. Fortunately, science has proven the value of repetition, trustworthy information and the techniques you’ll learn from this book. Most importantly, the results of these techniques are repeatable. You will be able to create systems to maintain the right perceptions, which will make it easier to keep them aligned.

PERCEPTIONICITY is organized into three parts.

Chapters One, Two, Three, and Four are in Part One - Between The Ears and cover the elements defining the concept of perceptionicity.

Chapters Five, Six, and Seven, which cover the logic and reasoning behind the basic concepts associated with perceptionicity collectively form Part Two - Real Or Not Real.

Chapters Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve, and Thirteen make up Part Three - The Art Of Perceptionicity and get into the practical mechanics, methods, and tools you will create and use for aligning perceptions.

I recommend that you read PERCEPTIONICITY from cover to cover this way you’ll have all the thoughts tools found inside. You may skip around, or jump right into the mechanics of perceptionicity in Part III. However, throughout the book, I give you some tips that will make it easier to understand the basics of what you will be learning, exercising and practicing in the art.

For example, Chapter One: On The Job Behavior will stimulate you to think about situations you may have experienced similar to our story of an accounting clerk. It will provide you with an understanding of how employees brand your company no matter what you say in your advertising messages. Chapter Seven: All In The Family is full of reasons why you may want to use, or adopt the aphorisms created by family-owned and operated companies regardless of the size or ownership of your company. There are some family secrets you will not want to miss.

Read this book from beginning to end because executing perceptionicity techniques is an art form. Applying these techniques involves having specific skills. As with any art, understanding its theory improves the application of its needed skills. Knowing perceptionicity theory will help you execute its practice.

Chapters three and four in Part I, and five and six of Part II provide you with the theory you need to perfect the art that you will learn to practice. What you get is:

• A deep understanding of the economic effect perceptions can have on business.

• Some of the science that has influenced my development of perceptionicity.

• The importance of perceptions to behavioral linkage.

• How easy it is to miss the obvious.

• How missing the obvious impacts your business.

Additionally, I suggest you read the book from cover to cover because this may be the first time you have ever heard the word perceptionicity and it’s new to you. I specifically coined the word perceptionicity to define and encompass all the processes used to align perceptions within organizational and/or corporate cultures. It has been my experience that when you learn a new art, you need some theoretical basics to be able to perfect its practice.

I think Eric Fromm said it best, Let your mind start a journey thru a strange new world. Leave all thoughts of the world you knew before. Let your soul take you where you long to be… Close your eyes let your spirit start to soar, and you’ll live as you’ve never lived before.

I trust you will enjoy your visit into the world of PERCEPTIONICITY!

Part One: Between the Ears

When you are not around what motivates your employees?~ PERCEPTIONICITY

With a book title of PERCEPTIONICITY, you can guess that I believe the answer to this question involves perceptions. Questions about perceptions have interested me dating back to 1971 when I first ran across the importance of perceptions to emotions and ultimately behavior.

Having started my business life as a salesman for Polaroid Corporation, I learned very quickly that the perceptions of my customers are reality. Nothing else really mattered, at least not to my customers. I learned that perceptions occupy some very important space. The space I am talking about is the space between the ears of those who most affect a company’s financial performance, first, employees and secondly, customers.

My District Sales Managers had about four or five salesmen reporting to them and anywhere from 10 to 30 merchandisers reporting to the salesmen. Managing salesmen, who in turn managed merchandisers, was a great exercise in aligning and maintaining perceptions. If you’ve had a similar opportunity, you know what I mean.

How well our district did had everything to do with perceptions. I learned that when the perceptions of our people were in alignment, the perceptions of our customers were in alignment. Did we sell anything? You bet we did!

Four people in particular taught me the importance of having a team’s perceptions in alignment, the late Chuck McDonald our Regional Sales Manager, and District Sales Managers Reed McElroy, Ron Mickwee, and Bob Garrity. This is just a quick thank you to these managers. Their philosophies have influenced my entire career, my life, and their counsel has inspired this writing. They taught me that the perceptions you embed in that valuable space between employees’ ears are what motivate employees.

One: Discover Perceptionicity

Why do employees do what they do? If you have ever asked yourself that question even once, you probably have asked it a hundred times. ~ PERCEPTIONICITY

An office clerk was alone in the office. It was after hours and she was getting ready to leave. The phone rang. She hesitated answering but thought it might be her husband calling to see when she would get home. After picking up the phone she heard the anxious voice of one of the company’s newest truck drivers. Before she could get a word out, he immediately went into his story.

His 18-wheel tractor-trailer had a full load that needed to be delivered by 8 A.M. the next day. He was on the New Jersey Turnpike and had apparently lost his wallet at a previous stop. Stranded, without money, credit cards or any way to pay the tolls, he needed help.

Ask yourself, what would you do if you were the clerk?

Sitting back reading this book it’s easy to answer that question. Common sense says that if you were the clerk you would have found a way to help him. You may have called your manager or taken it upon yourself to forward some money to a Flying J or Pilot Truck Stop where the driver could get enough money to deliver the load on time. On the other hand, the clerk could just do nothing. She could easily say, I am sorry it’s after hours and no one is here who can help you.

Now ask yourself, If you were the CEO of this company, are you 100% sure that every one of your employees would exercise the same common sense as you? This is a much more complicated question. Its answer could have an enormous economic impact on your company, even the entire U.S. economy, as you will see when we expand this example across the transportation industry.

Here’s what I mean. Virtually every commodity you eat, drink, or buy, travel by truck. According to the American Trucking Association, More than 80 percent of U.S. commodities companies depend on trucking for delivery of their goods and commodities. There are 3.5 million truck drivers who move these goods to their respective markets.

Think about this: Is 90 to 99% good enough?

If your answer to the question is yes, 90 to 99 percent is good enough, that would mean that 50 to 500 of 5,000 trucks could be sitting at the side of the road because of incidents similar to this one. A singular tractor-trailer produces $125,000 dollars in revenues per year for a transport company. At this rate of productivity a transport company would lose $60 for every hour the truck is sidelined; this means that 50 sidelined trucks will cost $3,000 per hour of lost productivity and 500 sidelined trucks would cost $30,000 per hour. Ouch!

If this or similar incidents occur throughout the trucking industry at rates of 1 to 10% per year, what does it mean to our economy’s productivity? Think about this, one of every 15 people working in the United States, a total of 8.7 million people, work in the transportation industry. Fortunately, most trucking companies have systems in place that support their drivers. If this were a true incident, it could have a bad ending.

There are many