Assumption is the mother of all f*ups. But you already knew that. If you didn’t, now you do.
I didn’t. I had to learn the hard way, and it’s something that experience taught me. And I’m talking years of experience, not just a week or two. Bit by bit, fight after fight, disagreement after disagreement.
Making assumptions is one integral part of how our brain works. Why? Because it saves you time, and it helps you assess rapport. Robert Cialdini, describes this process extensively in one of his best-selling books (which happens to be one of my favourite books too), Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion.
Let me illustrate this with an example.
You are waiting for the 8.04am train on the platform, as you do every morning (at least whenever there isn’t a national lockdown!). Is it worth checking Mr Google again, just in case something happened today and the train will be late? No. You assume that the train will be on time because that’s what it does: trains are on time! Besides, you’ve got other things to do, like read your emails, or catch up on the day’s news, things that are not trivial. What do we do with trivial? We assume trivial. We take them for granted. And this process does a damn good job at keeping our brain focused on the things that actually matter to us like, what am I going to have for lunch today? (we need energy, don’t we?) Or, what time am I picking up my kid from the nursery?
Assumption is also exhibited in established rapport. If you assume that I want my coffee black, no sugar, and you bring me a black coffee without sugar and I like it, this means you already know me a little. Maybe we’ve spent time in the past and we’ve built that rapport, we’ve got to know each other. Therefore, I can safely assume a few things about you.
Here are three examples from our day to day lives, which I’m sure will resonate with you.
At home
I assume that you put 2 teaspoons of salt in the food, whereas you assumed I’d welcome less salt in my diet and you only put half. Well, great, now I can’t eat that food, it’s tasteless. You, on the other hand, think I’m some kind of jerk who doesn’t appreciate your concern about my health! Lose-lose. If only you had asked before you started cooking…
In the office
Let’s move to the corporate environment. I assume that before you sent that very important communication email to the whole team, you’ve run it past a few people and got their approval. After all, it affects the whole team, it’s only common sense to have had a few discussions and head nods before you sent it, right? Wrong. You sent it anyway without the approval. Just because I assumed, it doesn’t make it true. Your thinking doesn’t necessarily match mine. If only you had asked what should be the appropriate process before you sent it…
In a software development team
Here come the developers! You assume that I will write some documentation to explain this new piece of code that I just wrote. However, as far as I’m concerned, the code works, passed the code review, boom, done. It’s trivial, I don’t need to explain what it does, f*king read it and see what it does! If only you had told me that you wanted to have written documentation from the start…
And that’s where the bickering starts.
You say, “It’s common sense to write a document on how your code works!”
I say, “I was never asked to document it!”.
You say, “But it’s common sense to accompany code with documentation”.
I say “Yeah, but this bit is trivial to everyone so didn’t need to”.
…and we can do this all day. You get the picture.
How to prevent this bickering
We’re all humans (apart from this dog who apparently learned how to speak) living different lives, having different priorities, coming from different backgrounds, and having different experiences. Our brains work differently, that’s the norm. In fact, how weird would it be for our brains to work and think in the same way! I bet you never thought about that! Whether a task is simple or complex, the way we tackle it is likely to differ. We’ll do stuff on our own, unique way unless…unless we establish some common way of understanding and work.
So, whether a task is simple or complicated, go ahead and ask for clarifications. Do it for your own sake as in “I am asking, because I want to be crystal clear”, or “I am asking now, so that I won’t have to undo it later”. Or, if you want to handle the responsibility back to someone by using reflection, “I am asking because what you have said so far is…”. And, why not, go ahead and document it. Our old friend Caius Titus had said to the Roman senate “Verba volant, Scripta manent”, spoken words fly away, written words remain. Asking doesn’t make you stupid, it makes you precise. And I’m sure people will appreciate you for following this attitude.
Making assumptions is built into our human nature. Not one or two, but millions of years of human evolution have led us here, so it’s normal to function in this way. However, as we live interconnected lives and one’s actions affect another, we need to understand how we live and work together. And it is asking questions that will help us lift the mist from the task complexity and help prevent disagreements.
