Role Perception

It was Shakespeare who said that, life is a stage and all of us are actors! How true. There is an issue when we cannot comprehend the role that is to be played by us in different settings. Many an employee is at odds and ends at the workplace because role perception is skewed. How does he/she perceive his role? How does his/her boss perceive the role and finally how does the organization (top management) perceive the role? It is when these perceptions are at loggerheads that we have a genuine problem on our hands. Perceptions are a wonderful entity, nebulous and vague but play a major role in how we navigate life, its complexities and all that it throws in our path.In short they have a stupendous bearing on how our lives play out.

The famed and ill fated trans Atlantic passenger ship ‘The Titanic’, predominantly carried two nationalities on board on her ill fated voyage, traversing the Atlantic –American and British. When the ship went down, let us see how the passengers either lived or died. Total Americans: 306 Total Americans who died: 119 % who died: 39. Total Brits: 327 Total Brits who died: 221 % who died: 66 Aren’t the figures staggering? Sixty Six percent Brits died to thirty nine percent Americans.

The anomaly may be explained by how the passengers perceived their roles in the crisis. The British being a mature sea faring nation had well developed nautical traditions, one of them being, that in an emergency at sea, women and children would be saved first. There would be no rushing to the life boats to save themselves by the British.The Brit male played his role out and died. The American had no such perception, and saved himself first. He too played out his role and lived!

Post the event,onbeing rescued this was what a womanpassenger said-"There was no panic and the discipline of the Titanic's crew was perfect. My husband joined me on the Carpathia, and we knelt together and thanked God for our preservation."