What is perception management

Government agencies and corporate businesses have adopted perception management as one of their essential goals , objectives, and ways to reach out to people. Perception management is an artistic and scientific way where you make use of creative ways to influence people.

You must ensure the buyers perceive your brand. Do you know that some well-known multinational companies hire paid reviewers to review their products?

Well, what brilliant perception management. Fast food brands always make use of artificial resources to make their products look more attractive. Have you ever had a packet of chips that looks full, but when you open it, you find out that the quantity is much less than what it seems or what you expected? Well, imagine selling a packet of chips that looks full, but when opened, it has nothing in it. When people find out that the packet contains a handful of chips, they will complain, but once they taste good, they will return to buy more.

However, if they do not find the chips, there is no prospect of eating these! The first impression is the last. If you are opening your start-up or starting your business, it is better to focus on what is real. Moreover, we also read how equity markets and share traders often base their buy and sell orders on perceptions of publicly held companies.

So, what is perception management and why is it so important for organizations. First, perception is how we think about a particular person, situation, event, or anything for that matter based on the stimuli we receive and the feelings and thoughts that we have about that entity. Mind you, the entity in question might or might not be what we perceive them to be and this is where perception management is important as irrespective of reality, we either perceive that entity in a favourable manner or we have a negative perception.

Therefore, the art and science of perception management is all about how entities create a favourable impression of themselves to their stakeholders be it prospective or existing employees, shareholders, consumers, and society at large.

Thus, organizations have to ensure that they are perceived well by their stakeholders. It is not only corporates but also any other entities who have to manage perceptions. For instance, right from the design of the lobby where visitors could be received and to the piped music that was being played, our employers ensured that both employees and visitors had a positive perception and the ambient atmosphere meant that irrespective of what the reality was, at least the perceptions were positive.

Apart from this, we also learnt in training sessions on how perceptions were important and why it was imperative to engage in perception management. The persona you put forward, however, must be you.

Any deception will be easy to spot, simply because living a lie is extraordinarily difficult to sustain. Common wisdom suggests that you need to take care of your relationships as you move up the career ladder.

People can harbor grudges for years. If someday you should find yourself on the way back down, you do not want to risk encountering an unforgiving individual in a position of power. If you cannot change your attitude, you had better have skills that make you indispensable! Remember that building self-awareness requires courage and commitment, so do not allow yourself to become discouraged by what you learn.

Before you embark on a perception management strategy, determine your goals, how you intend to accomplish them, and how you will monitor your progress. Focus initially on changing one thing that will create a quick win. Consider the context in which you are working and use the feedback you have received to select your goals.

You may have a strong desire to change your behavior and others may have encouraged you to do so—but remember—people are accustomed to the old you and may not react to the new you as you expect. It will help if you concentrate on four tracks:.

Military as part of their Psyops program, describing how selective information is provided or denied to a target audience to influence their emotions, motives and objective reasoning in order to promote a change in behaviour that is favourable to the sponsor [1].

According to one author, Deception and Disinformation are important ingredients of Perception Management; getting the target audience to believe whatever the sponsor wants them to believe regardless of the truth or validity of the information being promoted [2]. As specified by the U. Department of Defense, Perception Management "combines truth projection, operations security, cover and deception, and psychological operations" [1]. Perception Management operations have become a mainstream part of information management procedures in a variety of modern organisations.