I had an interesting experience today—actually, I found it amusing, but ridiculous.

I used to live in Silicon Valley, the land of early adopters and the technically obsessed, and am still involved with several groups there.

Here’s the short version of what happened.

• Around noon one of the project members sent an email to all of us saying he urgently needed certain information and asked if ‘Joe’ had it;
• Joe replied around 1 that he didn’t have it, but maybe a Jean did;
• Jean replied around 1:45 that only Mary had access to it.

I saw the thread around 2:15 when I got back to my office, called Mary and told her that she urgently needed to respond to the thread.

She did and the situation was dealt with immediately.

What was so ridiculous is that the entire group knows that

1)     Mary is the only person with access to this info;

2)     That she is ‘technologically challenged’; and that

3)     she doesn’t read email as it arrives; she checks it on and off when she has the time.

That means that email wasn’t the best choice to contact her and everybody knew—if they had stopped to think about it instead of running on autopilot.

There are many ways to contact people these days, email, instant messaging, Twitter, but only if you don’t care that the world can see it, Facebook, ditto, etc.

The problem lies in focus; your choice should depend not on your preference, but on the preference of the person you are trying to reach.

So remember, communicating is like playing golf. The trick isn’t to play the whole course with one club, but to know which club to use for which shot.

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What reality do you live in?

Not your spouse’s or your kids’; not your parents’ or your friends’. You live in the reality created by your MAP.

The reason is simple—perception is reality.

We filter our mental, emotional and physical surroundings through our MAP and, like snowflakes, no two people have identical MAP, so no two people perceive identically.

Does perception influence corporate culture? Absolutely.

Look at Google, since it’s one of the most discussed corporate cultures it’s easy to compare perceptions. Outsiders usually mention the stock options, food, concierge services and in-house massages first, while insiders hottest buttons are the 20% time to work on their own ideas, how well they are heard, opportunity to make a difference, and respect shown at all levels.

Consider the CEO who describes his company’s culture as open, fair and motivated, while the workers complain of regimented work and spend their time on job sites. Aside from CEOs that don’t walk their talk, the difference is often perception, i.e., what is a tight ship to one is micromanaging to the other.

In spite of perceptions, for culture to work everyone needs to be on the same page. That requires the culture-setters/enablers at the top to listen to perceptions other than their own—even when that’s uncomfortable. And not just listen, but act.

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I write a lot about the importance of communications, written and verbal. Last summer I wrote about the difference just one letter can make to the meaning.

Rarely do I see typos in business headlines, so when a bulletin from Market Watch hit my email I was really surprised. Here it is.

My point? No matter how vigilant you are errors can happen. The important thing is to handle it with care and avoid the blame game. I’ll bet those responsible for proofing Market Watch bulletins were embarrassed enough without anybody saying a word.

How would you handle this situation?