Today’s Strategic Alignment Journal post in two sentences:
When a solution isn’t working, we often look for what needs to change in the solution rather than questioning what we assumed about the problem. Before investing in another fix, it may be worth going back to the assumption on which everything else was built.
We make assumptions every day. We have to. We rarely have perfect information, so we observe what is happening, interpret what we see and form a working understanding that allows us to make a decision and move forward.
The problem is not that we make assumptions. The problem begins when we forget that they are assumptions.
We’ve made an assumption about the world and built plans on top of that assumption. The Daily Stoic
I thought about this sentence in the context of organizations. How many of us follow this exact pattern?
Here are some run of the mill assumptions that we make daily
An employee keeps missing deadlines, so we assume there is a performance problem. Customers are not buying, so we assume the marketing is not working. A team is struggling with a new process, so we assume they need more training. Revenue has fallen, so we assume we need more sales activity. People are not responding to an initiative, so we assume they are resistant to change.
Each assumption points naturally towards a solution.
- Address the employee’s performance.
- Change the marketing.
- Arrange for training.
- Increase sales activity.
- Work on getting people to embrace the change.
Once we believe we understand the problem, our attention shifts almost entirely to what we are going to do about it. We start building…getting budgets approved…getting consultants hired…developing programmes…purchasing technology…reorganizing teams…setting new targets.
What we haven’t done is question our assumptions. In fact, what usually happens is that those assumptions in our minds become facts.
Without examination, everything we build on these assumptions is unstable.
If customers are not buying because the product no longer meets an important need, changing the marketing may do very little. If an employee is missing deadlines because the approval process is creating bottlenecks, addressing individual performance may leave the real problem untouched. If a team is struggling because a new process is unnecessarily complicated, more training may simply make people better acquainted with a bad process.
The solution can be perfectly reasonable for the problem we believe we have and completely inadequate for the problem we actually have.
Enter the ultimate distortion
When the solution does not produce the result we expected, we often begin examining the solution.
- Perhaps the campaign needs a different message.
- Perhaps the training needs another module.
- Perhaps the team needs more accountability.
- Perhaps the technology needs another feature.
- Perhaps the strategy simply needs more time.
What happens in these instances is that we are reinforcing the structure when what needs examining is the foundation upon which it sits.
So this is now our reality: we have invested in the solution and committed time and resources. Now we double down because questioning the original assumption can mean questioning everything that followed from it and often we are ill prepared to face that truth.
Facing the truth is the beginning of clarity
Instead of immediately asking, “How do we fix this?”, there may be value in returning to an earlier question: What are we assuming is happening here?
Then we can ask what evidence supports that assumption, what else might explain what we are seeing and what would have to be true for the solution we are considering to make sense.
These questions are not about eliminating assumptions. We cannot. They are about keeping an important distinction visible: what we know, what we have observed and what we have concluded from what we observed are not necessarily the same thing.
Strategic Reflection Prompt
Think about a decision, strategy or solution you are currently pursuing. What are you treating as fact that may actually be an assumption, and what might you see differently if you examined that assumption again?
About Giselle
Some of the most costly decisions begin with a wrong read of the situation.
I’m Giselle Hudson, The Pre-Fixer™. I am asked to intervene when something important needs to be better understood before a consequential decision is made.
As The Pre-Fixer™, I act as a strategic thinking partner, working with leaders to examine what they are seeing, separate what they know from what they may be assuming, consider what else might explain the situation, and surface what may not yet be visible.
I don’t fix; I pre-fix. My work happens before the solution is chosen, helping leaders build the understanding from which better decisions can be made.
Through my daily Strategic Alignment Journal, I explore leadership, decision-making, business and the patterns that shape organizations, following the questions and observations that help us understand situations more clearly before deciding how to respond.
What are you trying to make sense of right now?
