How long do you need to watch a basketball player before knowing if they’re any good?
5 seconds? Less?
It’s almost immediately apparent. Sometimes it only takes one lay-up in practice before I can make a reasonable assessment about a player’s overall ability.
Same thing for a musician. Just one scale, or a section of a song, is a enough to make an initial judgement about their skillset.
These snap judgements aren’t perfect. There have been plenty of examples when I’ve had a bad initial read on someone.
But that’s not the point.
We rush to judgements of others, and they do the same of us. Sometimes it’s conscious. Often it’s not.
But either way, it happens.
The signals on the basketball court are simple. Merely moving with grace and being able to handle the ball already makes a statement.
But what other signals do we send every day?
When we open our mouths, what message are we sending – both in the content and the way in which we speak?
What signals do we send in the way we present ourselves, and how we behave?
-Brandon
I would tend to agree. I think that initial judgement on a basketball player/person can more often or not hold true, but every now and then there is that one superstar hiding behind that first missed layup/over zealous personality. You of all people should understand this quite well. Big take away for me here is to make sure that I present myself in a way that leaves the impression that I hope for, but knowing over time you can change that impression through repeated behavior.
Yeah, makes sense. There’s a balance here. These quick judgements serve a purpose in that they let us get a 80/90% solution using very little time or effort. But they’re far from perfect. I think the biggest problems arise when we rely on these snap judgements too heavily, or when we ignore the impact that they have.