Communication skills training teaches us the danger of assuming we know what another person is thinking. All managers and indeed everyone in business should learn how to listen better - or listen (really listen) at all - and reflect to check that they have heard correctly. This doesn’t happen often enough.
Many of us do what’s often called mentalizing. It’s a form of interpreting others’ behaviour using our mindset as a benchmark: beliefs, feelings, needs, and goals. We are naturally trying to figure out why a person is acting in a certain way. Mentalizing involves assuming that what you see and hear fits what makes you comfortable.
This can happen in our personal as well as our professional communications. Ethnicity, religion, accent, dress code, manners, looks, smell, size, and attitudes towards anything contribute to how we assess someone instantly. And that will shape all of our dealings with that person, certainly until our mindset towards that person changes. Indeed, we may try to avoid dealings with him/her or, if we’re obliged, we will take a negative or wary stance or attitude, neither of which may be helpful.
It’s natural to imagine the motivation behind what a person says or does. Or how s/he looks or behaves. But all too often, we’re wrong. And it’s due to our false assumptions.
Our assumptions about people are closely connected to our feelings about them. See if you can erase those feelings (not at all easy) and get closer to a more rational approach to the interaction. Think through what you assume are their motivations and their goals. And check that you’re correct in your thinking.
Try and ignore physical aspects - not easy at all since we are conditioned in our mindsets to respond to certain physical attributes in certain ways. These are things we are taught one way or another. So, look for things you may have in common, even if it’s just a smile.
Correct assumptions rely on understanding - and understanding, in turn, relies upon how you feel about yourself and how you feel about others. Therefore, it’s important to try and put aside any biases you may have about, well, anything. This is tremendously hard and won’t happen overnight, if at all. If you have a bias towards anything, talk to good friends about it, provided of course, that they don’t reinforce the bias! Read up about the topic, watch TV programs that may help, and perhaps seek external advice. But you must want to change or be fairer in your thinking.
The other factor at play here is that it’s perfectly natural for fear to be a driver in how we relate to other people. We’ll always back away physically or mentally if we sense any danger. Or attack. Both positions can lead to antagonism and failure to communicate. Prejudice, as suggested, is something that the majority of people have, even in small doses, and we must be careful not to allow prejudice or bias to drive our views in our interactions with people.
Get the facts. Try to find out what people truly want of you and what motivates them in dialogue or alternative communication. Ask questions from the perspective of trying to understand where they are coming from. Don’t guess. Don’t assume.
Assumptions are communication shortcuts. We often don’t want (or can’t be bothered) to take the time to get the full picture of a situation. Does the person have an accent you don’t like? Does the person have an ethnicity that makes you fearful or angry? Does the person say things in a way that irritates you? You will fail to communicate for whatever reason if you let biases lead you. Discover and manage the reasons. It’s impossible to change everything, and maybe some of your beliefs are easier to manage than others.
Quality communication takes effort. Assumptions are easy. Many (probably most) people don’t like to expend any more effort than necessary in a given situation. People often go through the motions during communication (speech, texting, emails, meetings) and don’t consciously consider what important information they are not sending the recipient.
Communication of any kind in any business often becomes rushed, ignored or simply incorrect, partly because the person sending the communications doesn’t understand the message. Or because the same person assumes s/he’s already done the job of making the point.
Anxiety can make communication challenging. It’s hard to address because anxiety, at some level, infiltrates numerous aspects of our lives. In a sense, anything that helps manage anxiety can help you improve the way you communicate. Anxieties can cause flared tempers, irritability, and conflicts.
Recall that time when you last heard two people arguing? Maybe you realized halfway through that they agreed but were using different words to say the same thing. They assumed they disagreed, so they moved forward under that assumption into unnecessary conflict.
The language we use is important. ‘Language’ here is a question of phraseology and terms used in an organization. It varies. The language used in a pharmaceutical business differs from that used in an accountancy firm, a garage or a hospital. That can include jargon and expressions that may mean something to one person or organization. People assume that the other party understands the jargon and doesn’t want to show ignorance. Also, people hide behind jargon. To them, it adds perceived value and is on the ‘inner’ track.
Assumptions can be damaging or simply embarrassing. If everyone assumes that someone else will bring the projector, there’s likely to be no projector. If you assume that someone else will bring the salt for the picnic, then it’s nobody else’s fault that there is no salt, even if the fault isn’t yours. It might be awkward later if you go on a date and assume the other person will pay the bill.
It can even go a step further. You could assume that all white people are racist, or that all black people are criminals. Assumptions on this level will distort our interactions with the world and negatively impact every aspect of our lives.
It’s worth mentioning this point once more. The trickiest thing about assumptions is that most of the time, they will be confirmed by our experience.
However, suppose someone assumes that all black people are criminals, for example. In that case, s/he might have this bias confirmed by regular news reports, a rap song in which the artist brags about past criminal activity, or something seen in a TV program. It would be easy for people to rest on these assumptions and avoid relationships with black people based on them. People of colour avoid contact with whites based on the assumption that their interactions will be tainted by racism. These things are not alas unusual.
Conversely, you might assume that all white people are racist and have this confirmed by news events, political activity, or what people in your family tell you. The same applies to specific views of, say, Muslims, Jews, Irish people or people without a degree, with a degree or people with an accent that’s not your own. And so on – ad infinitum.
There are several ways to reduce assumptions and improve communication. Firstly, as indicated, listen properly - listen. This isn’t easy and, by the way, you must stop thinking of what you’ll say next instead of listening.
Secondly, ask lots of questions – not annoyingly so that you irritate someone, but ask enough to ensure proper understanding. Don’t ever pretend to understand something if you don’t.
Thirdly, slow down. Don’t rush. If the person you’re speaking to or writing to is in a hurry, try and make further time down the line. Don’t just ignore it. Don’t let the other party just ignore it either.
Most of the time, you can do all three of these things at once, but through listening, we truly understand each other and build empathy. When someone is explaining their point of view, take time to listen and consider where they’re coming from. It’s perfectly easy to tune out (maybe because of how they look or their voice) and assume you know where they’re coming from, but if you try to listen constructively, you’ll build a communication bridge.
We all run into trouble because we often assume that we know what someone is asking us to do, and we move forward under that assumption. We might be in a rush to complete a task, but we do something wrong or not completely right because we didn’t slow down and listen to (or read) the directions.
The whole process of making assumptions is especially important if you’re working with clients. Imagine a graphic designer spending a few minutes with a client, and then they both go off just assuming that they understood each other. It happens. The designer might show up with an entirely inadequate solution, and everyone will be more than unhappy.
Similarly, if a manager gives a direct report a brief that isn’t clear, then the likelihood of the resulting work being substandard is high.
The whole issue of making assumptions is fraught; as indicated, we can’t stop making assumptions overnight, if ever. But with care, we can ensure that the assumptions that we do have in any given situation are correct. Or, at the very least, more correct.
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