Perception, Perspective and the lessons of Waitangi
Our Director, David, recently visited New Zealand and found that the importance of understanding different perspectives is as relevant today as it was during the signing of a treaty almost 200 years ago.
I was fortunate to go to the Waitangi Treaty Grounds in New Zealand recently as part of a holiday following the British Lions tour down under. If you are ever lucky enough to get the chance, it’s a stunning location in the North Island above Auckland, looking out over the Bay of Islands. This is the place where, in 1840, the British Crown and a number of Māori chiefs signed the Treaty of Waitangi[1].
It was a landmark event, but one that ultimately promised very different things to each of the parties, because the English and Māori versions of the treaty were not the same. Two sides signed the same piece of writing, yet their interpretations were worlds apart. From a British perspective, they had acquired sovereignty and rights over the land. From a Māori perspective, they had entered into partnership and guardianship, while retaining what they considered to be sovereignty, even if that word itself was unfamiliar to them.
When Māori signed the Treaty in their own language, they believed they were giving the British Crown a kind of governorship and authority to manage settlers and handle administration. But responsibility for the care and stewardship of their people, their land, and their treasures would remain firmly with them. The tragedy of course, is that the British interpreted it completely differently. They believed they had gained sovereignty in the European sense of the word which meant total control.
This difference in understanding (and I will assume both parties had a level of noble intent in their negotiation) was not a detail lost in translation; it was the seed of broken trust and animosity that has carried on for generations. Why? Because perception, what I believe to be true and perspective, what someone else believes to be true (their lens, their reality) were never aligned.
And the more I reflected, the more I realised how often the same thing plays out time and time again across history. But also of course, much closer to home in the workplace. Admittedly not on the scale of Waitangi, but in surprisingly similar patterns. The challenge we face is that we believe our perception is reality. We believe we’ve been clear. But when we haven’t invested the time in stepping into someone else’s shoes, when we fail to really explore their perspective or what it might be, we risk talking past each other and that can resonate weeks, months or even years later.
I see this all the time with teams. A senior leader might say, “The team aren’t stepping up, they don’t seem to care enough.” But when I spend time with the team, I often hear a very different story “We don’t want to get it wrong or we’re not quite sure what’s expected of us”. Same situation, completely different perspectives. The leader’s perception is likely shaped by frustration and the team’s perspective was shaped by fear of doing the wrong thing. Both made sense in their own way, but neither side had taken the time to really see through the other’s eyes, their perspective.
This is also where the ‘fundamental attribution error’[2] shows up in real life. I’ve caught myself doing it too. Someone misses a deadline and I think, “They’re not treating this seriously.” But when I miss one, I’ll justify it “I was overloaded, I had too many other priorities.” We’re quick to explain our own behaviour by context, but assume others’ behaviour reflects their character. And that’s exactly how perceptions can harden into misjudgements.
It’s one reason we use the Strength Deployment Inventory (SDI) in our work. SDI is a tool that helps people understand not just their own core motivations, but also how those motivations shift when they’re under pressure. It’s powerful because it makes the invisible visible, highlighting the different perspectives that drive behaviour, and why misunderstandings can so easily arise.
I remember working with a leadership team where one director was seen as controlling and overbearing. The perception around the table was: “They’re a micromanager, they don’t trust us.” But when we unpacked their SDI profile, we discovered that their primary motivation was actually protecting and supporting others. Under pressure, that care showed up as control. Once the team saw that perspective, the conversation changed completely. Suddenly they weren’t “the problem” anymore, they were someone acting from a different starting point. That shift opened the door to empathy, and with it better understanding and better collaboration.
And that, to me, loops back to Waitangi. The British weren’t signing with malice; they were operating from their worldview. Māori weren’t naïve; they were simply acting from their cultural framework of guardianship and authority. The clash wasn’t so much about intent, it was about perspective.
The lesson of Waitangi is a simple one, yet one of the hardest to practise, take time to listen and to see things as others do. That doesn’t mean abandoning your own perception, but holding it lightly enough to recognise that others’ realities may be just as true as yours. And this feels especially relevant now. With the rise of AI and the pace of technological change, the challenge of perception versus perspective is only intensifying. Algorithms, dashboards, automated systems give us faster data and sharper insights, but they also risk reinforcing our own biases. It becomes easier to confuse information with understanding, and to believe that what the numbers tell us must be “the objective truth.”
Perspective isn’t captured in a spreadsheet or a chatbot output. It lives in people’s motives, their fears, hopes, and lived experiences. As technology increasingly mediates our communication, we have to be more deliberate about bringing empathy and curiosity into the conversation. Otherwise, we risk projecting our own perception onto others, mistaking silence for agreement or interpreting hesitation as resistance, when the truth is often far more human and complex.
This is another case where neurodiversity matters. For someone who is neurodivergent, the way they perceive and process the world can be very different from the “neurotypical” majority. What feels straightforward to one person may feel overwhelming or incomplete to another. Neither is wrong, their perspectives are simply shaped by different neurological wiring. But it does mean that “stepping into someone else’s shoes” can be harder, because those shoes may not resemble any we’ve worn ourselves. That’s why slowing down, asking questions, and listening with genuine curiosity becomes so important.
Conclusion
At Clarion, we often say that transformation is rarely derailed by technical plans but by human misunderstanding. The same will be true in this age of AI. History shows us that perception without perspective is costly, and the Treaty of Waitangi makes that painfully clear. Whether in workplaces or in a technology-driven world, the real work is the same: to slow down enough to listen carefully, to step into someone else’s shoes, and to let empathy guide us to places that data alone will never be able to.
[1] New Zealand History, Ministry for Culture and Heritage. The Treaty of Waitangi. https://nzhistory.govt.nz/politics/treaty-of-waitangi
[2] Ross, L. (1977). The intuitive psychologist and his shortcomings: Distortions in the attribution process.