How Not to be Limited by Your Assumptions

Assumptions are often necessary for decision-making, but we need to avoid wrong suppositions if we want to make the right choices. We can get things wrong by applying assumptions in inappropriate circumstances, basing expectations on bad data, or making assumptions based on wrong thinking.

I have experienced the results of decisons made on poor assumptions and, in the process, learnt a lot about how best to avoid them.

A truly immersive cinema experience

I was in my room, watching the Lord of the Rings (The Return of the King) on my laptop. I had my earphones in and, despite the small screen, I was gripped. It was the battle of Minas Tirith, and the city was surrounded by an evil horde of orcs with their siege engines. As the army attacked the city and the rocks flew from the catapults, pounding the citadel I could almost feel the walls shaking. Another huge stone soared through the air to strike. Boom! My chair wobbled.

The sound on my laptop was good but I had definitely felt something. I took out my earphones and listened. The was a crashing sound, this time from outside my room, not from my computer.

Bother I thought, we are under attack.

This was a fair assumption as I was in a military base just outside Basra in 2004. It just turned out that, in a weird bit of synchronicity, that the local militants had decided to attack our base with rockets, just when I was enjoying a bit of downtime and watching a movie. Very inconsiderate of them I thought.

So, I put on my helmet and body armour and – doing my best to exude calm – walked out of my room into the chaos outside, then headed to the operations room. All the while I was thinking, “we expected to be welcomed; we were coming to help after all.”  How wrong we were!

Assumptions, decision-making and planning

There is a phrase about presuppositions, famous in military circles:

“Assumptions are the mother of all f***-ups”

Anon

This is not entirely true, but it does highlight the fact that bad assumptions can have disastrous effects. In the Army, when judgements often have life or death implications, making a wrong assumption could be fatal, as I nearly found out while working as a bomb disposal officer in Africa. And again now, in Iraq, it was turning out that the decisions and planning were based on some very poor assumptions. As a result, the situation was a mess.

What is an assumption and are all assumptions bad?

An assumption is something we accept to be true, even if we are lacking all the evidence. But assumptions are not necessarily bad. We sometimes need to make assumptions in decision-making as we cannot have absolutely all the information we want or need when making a choice.

For example, when I go to buy a flat white from a coffee shop, then I assume that the barista knows how to make one. I will probably look for information to back up that assumption such as, whether they list a flat white on the menu. To reduce the risk of the assumption I might also employ a heuristic (a decision-making hack), such as going to a shop I know and trust, to reduce the risk of getting a bad coffee. In this case, the assumption and the heuristic are sound. However, if I employed that same assumption in the wrong place, for example, a Turkish coffee house in Istanbul, then I might be disappointed when it comes to a flat white. Not only that, but I would also be missing out on some excellent Turkish coffee due to my bias for flat whites!

So, we can make assumptions in our thinking but first, we need to separate out what is a fact and what is an assumption. Once we identified an assumption then we must be sure it is a reasonable one, particularly if we take an assumption we often make and then apply it to a new context.

Assumptions based on inaccurate information

Some assumptions are not just applied to the wrong situation, they are based on corrupt data in the first place. We can compound the problem by then taking this inaccurate or limited information and then processing it poorly, due to cognitive bias. Going back to my earlier story, this was certainly the case with the war in Iraq.

Donald Rumsfeld, the American politician, famously said:

“Because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don’t know we don’t know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tends to be the difficult ones.”

There is a lot of wisdom there; although it is unfortunate that Rumsfeld himself did not pay enough attention to his own advice. It turns out, what were thought to be knowns were not knowns at all. They were a mixture of assumptions and wishful thinking.

In 2003, a bunch of bad assumptions, built on poor information, resulted in the US-led coalition intervening in Iraq and deposing Saddam Hussein. The intelligence cited in the ‘dodgy dossier’ has long been challenged. The evidence was based not just on bad information but was also warped by cognitive bias.

Bad assumptions just breed further wrong assumptions

And these assumptions and biases played out at every level. I deployed to Iraq fully believing that we wouldunearth weapons of mass destruction at any moment. For me the logic was simple. Saddam Hussein had used chemical weapons before, in the Iran-Iraq war and even against his own people. Therefore, when I heard that he still had weapons of mass destruction that made perfect sense. Apart from the fact he didn’t. We were suffering from narrative bias, amongst other things.

One of the populations who suffered from these chemical weapons and other persecution were the Shia tribes in Southern Iraq. So, we assumed a welcome after Saddam was removed and we went to rebuild Southern Iraq. This was positivity bias at the very least, but also a massive lack of true understanding. It did not take many months, or many rocket attacks and roadside bombs, to realise quite how wrong our assumptions were.

So, we must not apply our assumptions to the wrong situation. Nor do we make assumptions on bad data. And that means not being selective in the information one chooses to consider. To reduce the negative effects of cognitive bias we must employ a range of information sources and a diversity of viewpoints.

Negative assumptions based on bad thinking

The other trap we can fall into with assumptions is bad thinking. By that I mean we can have wrong assumptions that are embedded, often unconsciously, in our minds. These beliefs often come from bad experiences or negative things that have been said to us in our past. If someone calls you “stupid” then you can start to believe it. We can start to believe these are facts when they are, at best, just subjective ideas.

Negative assumptions are often tied up with our feelings of self-worth. For example, you could be attracted to someone but afraid to ask them out on a date. You might be thinking “I am not good enough for them” or “they are out of my league.” These were certainly my thoughts when I met one particularly beautiful girl back in college. When I spoke about her with my friends, even they thought I was trying to bat above my average (thanks guys!) Fortunately, I overcame this wrong thinking (and bad advice) and nearly 20 years later I am still happily married to that wonderful woman.

“The most tenacious block to new ideas is limiting assumptions.” 

Nancy Kline

We all have hang-ups and insecurities that clog our neural pathways. The author and coach Nancy Kline calls these blockages in our minds limiting assumptions. Limiting assumptions stop us from thinking and acting properly. In my experience, a large part of coaching is listening out for such internal defeater-beliefs and asking incisive questions to help clear them away. And if you don’t have a coach to talk through your decision then ask yourself, what assumptions am I making that are just subjective thoughts?

We all must make a philosophical choice about what we choose to believe. Take a good look at what you think is true; examine it and test it before you make a decision – particularly an important one – based on that assumption.

The four steps to testing assumptions

As we have seen, assumptions are often necessary for decision-making but wrong assumptions can lead to poor choices and bad outcomes.

So, if we want to avoid poor assumptions follow these four steps:

  • First, separate out assumption from fact.
  • Second, only use an assumption in the appropriate context.
  • Third, don’t make an assumption based on bad information or selected through bias.
  • Fourthly, examine your beliefs to ensure they are not just limiting assumptions based on wrong thinking.

If we make these checks then we are much more likely to be able to make a good decision. You can start with a choice you have to make today. Have a think through the four steps. What assumptions are you making and are they rational?

And remember, as decision-making guru Darren Matthew observes,

“Your important decisions will work better with fewer assumptions.”

 

If you want the right answers you have to start with the right questions

About The Right Questions

The Right Questions is for people who want greater clarity, purpose and success. There is a wealth of resources to boost your effectiveness in achieving goals, your leadership of yourself and others, and your decision-making.

Wherever you are on your journey, I hope that you find information on this site to help you on the next leg of your quest. Even if that is just the inspiration to take one small step in the right direction, then that is a success. If you can take pleasure in learning and travelling as you go, then so much the better.

Need help navigating your journey to success?

I love to serve people, helping them unlock their potential, empowering them as leaders, and assisting them in achieving their goals. Please get in touch and let me know how I can support you!

How Do You Overcome Fear?

In my last post I talked about the Stockdale paradox and coming to terms with the brutal facts of our situation. That is the first step in addressing our fears.

When one looks at the reality of where we are it can be scary at first but as you take think everything through logically it can start to dispel those fears.  We need to ask ourselves, Ok, so what is the worst that can happen? If we analyse the problem in this way we can put things into perspective as often the worst thing is not that bad after all.  We can also start to plan and work out how would we would act if the worst case scenario was to happen.  In this way we can confront our fears.

Confronting fear

Confronting our fears helps us to avoid either living in a dream world or being crippled by limiting assumptions.

As the Japanese proverb says:

Vision without action is just a dream; action without vision is a nightmare.

We need a clear vision and we need to understand the assumptions we have that either enable or limit our actions.  Sometime negative assumptions are referred to as defeater beliefs but I think it is more helpful to think of them as assumptions as belief can have more fixed connotations and if negative, these thought patterns need to be challenged.

For example, when trying to introduce a change in your professional life you may face fears about your job, your promotion prospects or your financial security.  This can trigger thoughts such as “I can’t do that – I would lose my job!”  This is reasonable enough, as losing one’s job can have major consequences, but make sure you think it through.  You may well find that:

  1. If you are smart about how you do things then you probably don’t need to lose your job, or
  2. That it would be worth the risk as you do not like your job anyway, or
  3. You are pretty confident you could find a new and better job

There are plenty of other defeater beliefs that we could add in here such as:

  1. “I won’t be able to pay my mortgage/student loan/credit card bill/monthly subscription to Sky Sport*”, or
  2. “My boss/parents/family/imaginary friend won’t let me*”, or
  3. “I will lose my friends/the good favour of my colleagues/the respect of my dog*”

(*delete as appropriate)

Overcoming fear

Whatever fears pop into your mind when you look at your present and future situation make sure you capture them and interrogate them fully.  Assess each of them to see how real the perceived threat actually is. This way we can overcome fear.

We also need things in balance. Therefore when considering the ‘where’ question we keep one eye on the present and one on the future; one on the location, one on the vision.  The dream of the future needs to be compelling enough to draw us forward, no matter what the challenges are that we face, and we will be looking at this aspect of ‘where’ in a future post.

Which fears have you faced and overcome? Which would you like to overcome?

If you want the right answers you have to start with the right questions

About The Right Questions

The Right Questions is for people who want greater clarity, purpose and success. There is a wealth of resources to boost your effectiveness in achieving goals, your leadership of yourself and others, and your decision-making.

Wherever you are on your journey, I hope that you find information on this site to help you on the next leg of your quest. Even if that is just the inspiration to take one small step in the right direction, then that is a success. If you can take pleasure in learning and travelling as you go, then so much the better.

Need help navigating your journey to success?

I love to serve people, helping them unlock their potential, empowering them as leaders, and assisting them in achieving their goals. Please get in touch and let me know how I can support you!