A friend was flying from San Francisco to Los Angeles. After a 45-minute delay in taking off, they then had to make an unexpected stop in Sacramento. The flight attendant announced there would be another 45-minute delay, and if they wanted to get off the aircraft, they could re-board in 30 minutes.

Everyone got off the plane except one gentleman who was blind. My friend noticed him as he walked by and could tell he had flown this flight before because his guide dog lay quietly underneath his seat. Just then the pilot approached the man and called him by name.

“Keith, we’re in Sacramento for almost an hour. Would you like to get off and stretch your legs?”

Keith replied, “No thanks, but maybe my dog would like to stretch his legs.”

All the people in the gate area came to a complete standstill when they looked up and saw the pilot, who was wearing sunglasses, walk off the plane with the guide dog! People scattered. They not only tried to change planes, they also were trying to change airlines!

Unfortunately, perception equates to reality for many. But perception and reality have very different meanings. The problem happens when perception becomes a person’s reality. They see what they expect or want to see, disregarding what is actually true.

Psychiatrist Jim Taylor said: “Perception acts as a lens through which we view reality. Our perceptions influence how we focus on, process, remember, interpret, understand, synthesize, decide about and act on, reality. In doing so, our tendency is to assume that how we perceive reality is an accurate representation of what reality truly is.

“But it’s not,” he adds. “The problem is that the lens through which we perceive is often warped in the first place by our genetic predispositions, past experiences, prior knowledge, emotions, preconceived notions, self-interest and cognitive distortions.”

For example, take a car accident. You can ask several people who witnessed the accident what happened, and many of them saw it differently. That’s why eyewitness identifications often become issues in crime investigations. The National Academy of Sciences recently convened a panel of experts to undertake a comprehensive study of current practice and use of eyewitness testimony, with an eye toward understanding why identification errors occur and what can be done to prevent them. Bottom line, they found that eyewitness accounts are often wrong.

An article in The New Yorker magazine cited psychologist Elizabeth Phelps, who concluded in a 2011 study that when an event is particularly exciting or traumatic, the memory is seared into the brain, often at the expense of the peripheral details. The focus of the witness’s memory is on the action that took place and not on the circumstances under which it took place, making it difficult for a jury to refute what a witness claims to have seen or heard. But as Phelps’ study showed, just because witnesses are confident about their version of events does not mean their accounts are accurate.

Businesses and organizations need to pay attention to how they are perceived by customers and prospects. Does your target audience see your signature products as innovative, well-priced, useful and available? Are customers swayed by comparison advertising that presents your goods as inferior or not worth the cost?

In reality, you may have the best products, the best people, the fairest prices and still have a negative perception. One bad online review can rapidly sway public perception and destroy years of building a good name. The most difficult part is that the review may not even be true. And you have to work harder than ever to repair the damage, not necessarily knowing where the information is coming from. It’s not fair, but it is reality.

Be aware of your public profile and use every option available to keep your reputation positive. Put customer service at the top of the list for every employee, from the factory floor to the sales force to the executive suite.

The issue of perception is not a recent phenomenon. Look back to the days of second-century Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, who observed: “Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.”

I’m not sure I’d go that far, but I see some truth in that statement. A couple thousand years later, we are still at the mercy of human nature!

Mackay’s Moral: Be careful not to let your perceptions be based on deceptions.

A friend was flying from San Francisco to Los Angeles. After a 45-minute delay in taking off, they then had to make an unexpected stop in Sacramento. The flight attendant announced there would be another 45-minute delay, and if they wanted to get off the aircraft, they could re-board in 30 minutes.

Everyone got off the plane except one gentleman who was blind. My friend noticed him as he walked by and could tell he had flown this flight before because his guide dog lay quietly underneath his seat. Just then the pilot approached the man and called him by name.

“Keith, we’re in Sacramento for almost an hour. Would you like to get off and stretch your legs?”

Keith replied, “No thanks, but maybe my dog would like to stretch his legs.”

All the people in the gate area came to a complete standstill when they looked up and saw the pilot, who was wearing sunglasses, walk off the plane with the guide dog! People scattered. They not only tried to change planes, they also were trying to change airlines!

Unfortunately, perception equates to reality for many. But perception and reality have very different meanings. The problem happens when perception becomes a person’s reality. They see what they expect or want to see, disregarding what is actually true.

Psychiatrist Jim Taylor said: “Perception acts as a lens through which we view reality. Our perceptions influence how we focus on, process, remember, interpret, understand, synthesize, decide about and act on, reality. In doing so, our tendency is to assume that how we perceive reality is an accurate representation of what reality truly is.

“But it’s not,” he adds. “The problem is that the lens through which we perceive is often warped in the first place by our genetic predispositions, past experiences, prior knowledge, emotions, preconceived notions, self-interest and cognitive distortions.”

For example, take a car accident. You can ask several people who witnessed the accident what happened, and many of them saw it differently. That’s why eyewitness identifications often become issues in crime investigations. The National Academy of Sciences recently convened a panel of experts to undertake a comprehensive study of current practice and use of eyewitness testimony, with an eye toward understanding why identification errors occur and what can be done to prevent them. Bottom line, they found that eyewitness accounts are often wrong.

An article in The New Yorker magazine cited psychologist Elizabeth Phelps, who concluded in a 2011 study that when an event is particularly exciting or traumatic, the memory is seared into the brain, often at the expense of the peripheral details. The focus of the witness’s memory is on the action that took place and not on the circumstances under which it took place, making it difficult for a jury to refute what a witness claims to have seen or heard. But as Phelps’ study showed, just because witnesses are confident about their version of events does not mean their accounts are accurate.

Businesses and organizations need to pay attention to how they are perceived by customers and prospects. Does your target audience see your signature products as innovative, well-priced, useful and available? Are customers swayed by comparison advertising that presents your goods as inferior or not worth the cost?

In reality, you may have the best products, the best people, the fairest prices and still have a negative perception. One bad online review can rapidly sway public perception and destroy years of building a good name. The most difficult part is that the review may not even be true. And you have to work harder than ever to repair the damage, not necessarily knowing where the information is coming from. It’s not fair, but it is reality.

Be aware of your public profile and use every option available to keep your reputation positive. Put customer service at the top of the list for every employee, from the factory floor to the sales force to the executive suite.

The issue of perception is not a recent phenomenon. Look back to the days of second-century Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, who observed: “Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.”

I’m not sure I’d go that far, but I see some truth in that statement. A couple thousand years later, we are still at the mercy of human nature!

Mackay’s Moral: Be careful not to let your perceptions be based on deceptions.

"Pushing the envelope" is a phrase that gained popularity with American test pilots such as Chuck Yaeger and John Glenn in the 1950s. Each aircraft they flew was said to have an “envelope” of performance. In other words, it was designed to fly safely up to a certain speed for a certain distance at a certain altitude. The job of test pilots was to “push the envelope” by making the plane go faster, farther and higher.

To me, “pushing the envelope” means pushing the boundaries and pushing yourself to maximize your advantage to be better, faster and smarter and to get the results you want -- in business and in life.

It’s difficult to overstate the importance of speed in business. This century’s business is dominated by speed. Speed is no longer a luxury; it’s a necessity. Having a great product isn’t enough anymore. People expect things faster, cheaper and better. Every part of your business needs to be up to speed.

Take customer service, for example. You need to speed up the time handling customer complaints. When you serve your customers in a timely fashion, you end up with satisfied customers. Poor customer service equals dissatisfied customers. My motto has always been “Taking care of customers is taking care of business.” If you make customers No. 1, they will make you No. 1. Speed allows you to differentiate in the marketplace. Amazon’s emphasis on speed is a great example.

If businesses don’t think fast and act fast, they get passed like jalopies on the freeway. Companies like Blockbuster, which stayed the same for years, were passed up by video-streaming subscription services like Netflix.

Mainstay companies like Sears, Kodak, Xerox, Radio Shack and Toys “R” Us are all shells of what they used to be. Businesses have to keep up or get passed up.

Kmart and Walmart both started in 1962, but compare the two companies today. Walmart has continued to make changes and reinvent itself, which is reflected in its sales of more than $510 billion. Kmart, on the other hand, remained stagnant, and it’s struggled (after being acquired by Sears) in and out of bankruptcy.

IBM and Hewlett-Packard got passed up by Dell when it started selling computers directly to consumers, instead of through stores.

We live in a world of instant gratification, so consumers expect speed. They can’t wait until the next great smartphone with expanded capabilities. There will always be a group of people who demand the latest and the greatest, and there will be a forward-thinking company ready to serve them.

An important component of speed is getting your workforce -- employees, contractors and vendors -- up to speed by training them to complete tasks faster, innovate and share best-practice ideas. When you hire the right person, you're only halfway right. Train them correctly, consistently and constantly to move at a rapid pace with ease. One caveat: Never sacrifice quality for speed. Faster is only better if the result is a top-notch product, as illustrated in the following story.

A man was driving down a country road one day at 45 miles per hour, when suddenly he noticed a three-legged chicken running at the same speed beside his truck. Though he thought this odd, the man decided to speed up so he wouldn't cause an accident with the chicken. The man sped up to 55 miles per hour, but so did the three-legged chicken. The man then sped up to 65, and so did the three-legged chicken.

As the man watched in amazement, the chicken suddenly made a sharp left turn and took off down a side road toward a small farm. The man turned and followed the chicken to the farm. Looking around, the man found a farmer around back amid a flock of three-legged chickens. After greeting the farmer, the man asked him why he was raising three-legged chickens.

“Well, we figure that with an average family of three people, only two can have a chicken leg with a normal chicken,” said the farmer. “But with a three-legged chicken, each member of the family can enjoy a chicken leg of their own.”

“That's pretty wise,” said the man, who then asked, “So how do your three-legged chickens taste?”

“I don't know,” said the farmer. “We've never been able to catch one.”