How Well do You Know Yourself and Your Colleagues?

Have you ever had one of those moments when someone makes a comment about you and you think to yourself: “Is that really how I appear to other people?”
Well, I have big news for you.
We are NEVER who we think we are.
It’s a shame we develop these cast iron beliefs about the sort of person that we are in our lives only to find out that we are actually experienced by others as someone totally different.   Here is an exercise that you can do quite quickly to demonstrate this.
Have a look at this list of characteristics:

“Getting to Know You, Getting to Know all About You”
Think of the person whom you know the best in your workplace and circle the ten characteristics that best describe him/her as you experience them. On another chart, have them do the same regarding the ten characteristics which they think best describe themselves.
Now compare the charts side by side to see how many of them are the same and how many are different. This will definitely give you something to talk about for a while.
It will also show you that we have a mistaken idea of how we are perceived to the people in our lives. The person that we think everyone around us sees is not that person at all.
This is really important news for us since if we are blind to how people actually experience us, there is potential that we could be conducting ourselves (saying things or doing things) in a manner that we think is appropriate but is actually not.
That would be a BIG PROBLEM!
We need to become much more aware of how we are experienced by those around us if we are to ensure that we are behaving in a truly respectful manner.