Beware the Message, Because of the Messenger

In my ignorance, I believed that everyone was aware that they have a point of view and that the point of view is uniquely their own and not necessarily reality. I know that humans love being right and correct in all things, yet I believed that we are all, at least aware, that our point of view is skewed by our own background and our emotions.
Doesn’t everyone understand that motivations are very personal? I mean one reason why we do not “trust” salesmen is because the motivation is counter to our own motivation which is to keep our money, while the salesman wishes us to part with our money. So inherently, we all know that motivation is personal.

I am surprised when people don’t recognize that actions have motivations behind them. For all supervisors and management staff, indeed for anyone who has a senior decision making role in any position in life, one must consider the motivation for all incoming communication and feedback. Only by understanding that all behavior is motivated and that motivations are strictly personal in nature, can we truly evaluate the point of the conversation.

Many will come to you to attempt to bend your opinions and actions to their own personal point of view, this is called lobbying, and everyone engages in it. We fall into relationships that require trust and sometimes that will lull us into not thinking, because, clearly, if we thought about it, we would know when malfeasance was coming our way.