The Biggest Threat to Healthy Work Relationships: Our Assumptions

What is one thing that feels frustrating to you at work right now? Once you have that situation (or person) in mind, ask yourself:

"What assumptions am I making about this scenario?"

If we're honest with ourselves, our assumptions are alive and active in any situation where we're feeling some degree of frustration or disappointment. The trickiest part is that these assumptions are sneaky — they form in our subconscious and start to influence our thinking without us even realizing it.

This is dangerous, and the only way to stop it is to slow down and intentionally identify any assumptions at play.

I hope this week's Two-Minute Tip will help.

• Read the video transcript

  Well, last night our youngest daughter wanted to rake the leaves, and so of course we let her loose. What great news that your child wants to go do a chore on her own?

  Well, after about five to 10 minutes, my husband peeked out the window to see how it was going, and lo and behold, she was raking leaves to the back gate and then shoveling them over the gate, over the fence into the common area. That's how she was disposing of our leaves. And so he quickly ran outside to let her know that that was not actually okay. We are not going to be known as the neighbor who shovels their leaves into the common area.

  Now, easy situation here, right? It was pretty clear that she did not know that this was inappropriate and so easy to go and inform her of the right way to handle it.

  It typically isn't so black and white at work. And I would say in probably over half of my coaching conversations, what I am doing is challenging assumptions if something's not going the way we want at work, if somebody's not performing in the way that we want, if they've got some kind of pattern in behavior that's rubbing us the wrong way, we are so quick to make assumptions about why it's happening. And we are very slow to acknowledge that.

  Perhaps there's lack of awareness on their end. Perhaps we did not clearly communicate expectations. Perhaps we have not helped them understand what's missing or what needs to be redirected.

  And so I want to challenge you to think of a situation at work or a person at work where you're feeling frustrated, where maybe they're not delivering what it is you want them to deliver.

  Maybe it seems like they're taking advantage of the work from home policy, whatever it is. I want to challenge your assumptions. I want you to challenge your assumptions -- to pause and think, gosh, what assumptions am I making here and what might they not be aware of? What don't they know? And how can I take a step to increase awareness and give them a chance to redirect before I just make an assumption and withdraw? Because that's what typically happens. Okay?

  So last night we could have assumed she knew not to throw the leaves over the the gate, but instead we gave her the benefit of the doubt and went and heightened awareness. And I want you to do the same thing with your situation at work.