If you’re like the thousands of company owners and chief executives I’ve met worldwide, you know the damaging power of biased, assumptive thinking on business outcomes. You know firsthand the hard dollar costs of making a really bad mistake based on faulty judgment.
If you’re a self-aware leader, you know the question of your assumption isn’t whether you are or not — it’s to what degree you are or can be. None of us are free from biased thinking.
Self-aware leaders continually challenge their assumptions and restraints. They make a practice of it. They are ruthlessly disciplined in applying discretion to cleanse their judgments from biases. They put controls and feedback measures in place to cross-check their foundational thinking. How do you control against biased thinking? Here are 10 simple ways to avoid assumptions:
1. Demystify language. Words mean different things to different people.
2. Cross-check understanding. Have your people say back what the goal is, its purpose and its direct link to strategy.
3. Cross-check action steps. Ask your people what specific actions need to happen by when.
4. Ask how critical decisions were made. Look for all the component elements that factored into their conclusions.
5. Assess skill, confidence and commitment levels of those involved. Map your leadership style to the direction and support levels of your people.
6. Practice inversion thinking. Define what would have to be done to fail at a goal or task, then do what you need to do to avoid that.
7. Stop answering questions. Start respectfully questioning answers.
8. No mind-reading. If you’re called to be a psychic, remember it's not in your current job description.
9. Determine if those involved in a project are emotionally involved in it. Watch passion levels and attachment to loving only certain outcomes.
10. Listen first before inserting your point of view. What you have to add to the picture may detract from it.
Effective leaders work with their managers to minimize assumptions. Managers work with their teams to do the same. Business leaders value discretion. They apply it in their decision making and action planning. Do you? How?
Nonassumptive leaders understand the wisdom of Wethern’s Law of Suspended Judgment, which declares, “Assumption is the mother of all screw-ups.”
One of the most common screw-ups I see in organizations is leadership’s assumption of role clarity.
Leaders aren’t nearly as clear as they think they are when it comes to defining position roles and boundaries for themselves, their executives and managers. Grand Canyon-like gaps are revealed whenever I capture and compare position role statements defined by contributors and their bosses. I rarely see role alignment. I usually see pervasive presumption based on brash, brazen and arrogant assumptions.
Here are five outcomes of assumptive thinking:
1. When we overvalue our own thinking, we undervalue the thinking of others.
2. When we over-rely on our point of view, we undervalue the radial intelligence of others.
3. When we overvalue our own value, we become isolated from the value of others.
4. The more isolated we are from others, the more others isolate themselves from us.
5. The more operationally assumptive we become, the lower our emotional intelligence becomes.
Think of those really bad bosses you’ve worked for. How many of those expressed those principles? Ask yourself if your people think you’re assumptive.
How do you know if you’re an assumptive leader? Here are five operating areas assumptions may show up across:
1. People (competency, confidence, commitment, initiative and accountability levels)
2. Systems and processes
3. Profitability
4. Productivity
5. Utilization and output capacity
Fast: List which assumptions might be occurring in each above operating area. Decide who else is needed to validate your assessment. Create your required action improvement plan.
As leaders, we all want self-reliant, capable and dependable producers. They free us up to better do our jobs. But are you doing all you need to do to foster self-reliance across your people and teams? If you’re honest, you’ll admit there’s better leadership needed to transform workers into self-reliant performers.
In companies with only average leadership skills, workers know what to do. In companies with above-average leaders, workers know generally why their work as a team is needed. Their knowledge of contribution, though, is nonspecific. They don’t know their individual contribution value.
In companies with highly skilled leaders, their people know how their specific individual contribution impacts dollar-value profitability to their company. They don’t have to assume how they’re valued -- they know it.
Exceptional leaders value transparency. They understand when workers know their actual value, a transformational shift occurs, and contributors become empowered, self-reliant producers.
Performance quality increases. High-performing teams anticipate, deliver and exceed customer expectations. Clients, vendors and suppliers recognize they have reliable partners. Their reliance creates business security. Suppliers become partners, not replaceable commodities. Reliable performance excellence is rewarded by profitable margins earned.
All of us fall in love with excellence we can rely on. We happily pay more for security. Outstanding reliability is the result of a set of nonassumptive performance standards. When met, the outcomes create positive dependency. This forms a Lion King-like Circle-of-Life relationship between producers and consumers.
Nothing in this loop of creation to fulfillment to transaction to consumer love happens by taking any part of it for granted. None of it happens by assumption. Nonassumptive leaders know this. Do you?
Are you an assumptive leader?
