One of the things we can all be guilty of from time to time is pre-judging, and pre-judging incorrectly.
Whether it be things, events, or people, human beings always tend to be pre-judgers.
The question is why?
“Why do people pre-judge?”
The reason is because of fear.
People pre-judge mostly as a result of fear.
Judging and categorizing of other people and things is the most efficient way for people to reinforce the assumptions on which they base their core view of reality.
In reality, our essential view of the world and ourselves is the sum of everything that we have thought and experienced. It is also limited by any experiences, thoughts and emotions that we refuse or deny.
All people are hard-wired to enjoy the feeling being right and to enjoy the process of making correct predictions about what they see and experience.
For most people it is important to have their judgments and predictions continually reinforced, even though it doesn’t actually matter if those predictions are accurate.
Because as it turns out most people are quite terrible at pre-judging.
However, the emotional need to be a pre-judger remains…
While Jayne and I were away on a recent road trip…
While Jayne and I were away on a recent road trip we visited a number of regional wineries and enjoyed their cellar door tasting experiences.
At one cellar door, we enjoyed engaging in a very interesting and meaningful discussion with our server Simon about his experiences with judging and pre-judging visitors to his cellar door, and talking about his successes and failures, and whether in fact he was a good pre-judger or not.
On the whole, Simon reported, that as a pre-judger he was in fact a poor judge as to whether patrons were going to be serious wine connoisseurs or not, and whether or not they were going to be purchasers of significant quantities of wine.
This was quite interesting.
For a person to be admitting their judgments could be incorrect means examining their own perception of their reality along with any resistances they might have towards certain aspects of that reality.
That’s because most people have minds that work more out of mechanical instinct, persuasion and habit, than logic or truth.
Are you a pre-judger?
Years ago a man turned up in my dental practice one morning without an appointment, asking whether I could have a look at his teeth.
He was dressed very casually in a flannelette shirt. In fact he looked very “working class”.
I was able to see him, and in discussion I found out that he was a small business owner, providing shelving to a major hardware retailer.
And that he had just won ten million dollars in the lottery.
And he wanted to get his teeth fixed.
He had come to our building primarily to see a hair studio in the building, but had seen on our practice listed on the tenant directory in the foyer and thought that he might “kill two birds with one stone” on his visit.
Had I not treated this person with independent respect, he may not have invested with me in improving his oral health.
Had I not treated this patient with independent respect, he may have perceived some inherent indifference from me towards him.
You just never know…
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Dr. David Moffet BDS FPFA CSP is a certified CX Experience coach. David works with his wife Jayne Bandy to help SME businesses improve their Customer Service Systems to create memorable World Class experiences for their valued clients and customers. Click here to find out how David and Jayne can help your business