Assumptions & energy
There are four components to the energy leader model
- Personal energy, that which we bring ourselves to the party
- Creative energy, to see solutions through problems
- Connective energy, our power to forge connections with others and collaborate
- Catalytic energy, our power as leaders to inspire and invoke energy in others
In the last few articles of this series on personal energy I’m going to explore the three main issues that block our own personal energy and some simple strategies for tackling them. Some you may have heard of but they’re nonetheless surprisingly common. So let’s get them out there and get them out of the way so you can benefit from an instant energy boost.
In my last article we looked at limiting beliefs both at a personal level and for you as a leader in relation to your team. This week looking for instant energy fixes we’re looking at assumptions and interpretations.
Alan had been the new sales manager at Sirmia Labtech, a company making glass vials for the pharmaceutical industry. He’d worked as a sales associate for a while but this was his first step up into being a sales manager and first time leading people. His new boss Dave had made it clear he held high expectations that Alan would knit a powerful sales force together. Alan had made a few speeches and briefings to his new team, presentations that didn’t come naturally to him as he’s much more comfortable in one on one scenarios but necessary nevertheless.
One day, feeling the need to do things less formally and to get to know his staff he took a walk down the corridor into the break area where some of his sales assistants were getting coffee. After noticing the conversation level stop as soon as he approached he tried his best to start a conversation but it all felt a little awkward. Saying his goodbyes he picked up his coffee turned his back and then felt his cheeks glow with embarrassment at hearing giggles and laughter from the coffee area. They’re all laughing at me, he thought. I don’t have their respect, they think I’m a bit of an awkward idiot. Maybe a made the wrong choice jumping ship and should have stayed where I was.
From the outside it’s easy for us to see the disconnect between what’s happening here and Alan’s choice of interpretation. For all we know, those in the coffee pot could have been discussing last night’s TV, they could be themselves still trying to figure out how they want to be seen by the new boss. The point is no-one really knows.
Yet for Alan, the interpretation of the scenario comes easily and for all of us this is what we do. Faced with imperfect facts, we allow our brains and the imagination within, to fill in the blanks for us and interpret the situation. Often we use scripts and routines from the past to fill in those blanks. For Alan, a sense he’s not great at presenting or working with crowds of people and stepping into a brand new managerial role was enough to prompt him to interpret the situation as being not able to command respect of others and doubting the promotion he’d taken.
We use interpretation at a business level as well as personal level. The customer chose to go with our competitor so our pricing must be wrong or I must be really bad at selling. False interpretations pull us into taking actions that are either unhelpful or counterproductive.
CHALLENGING YOUR INTERPRETATION
The simplest way to check if this is your interpretation or not is to ask for other insights. Had Alan asked his boss and some of his direct reports how they felt his first month had gone, he might have reached entirely different conclusions. Had we asked our sales team, I know we lost the Sirius account but how are our other client reacting to our raising of prices, we may reach an entirely different conclusion.
What is telling us this is likely to be true versus my own interpretation
What are the other ways I could interpret this situation, how else could it be seen
How out of the ordinary is this event
Are all check-point questions you can ask of yourself to check interpretation.
ASSUMPTIONS MAKE AN *** OUT OF YOU AND ME
So goes the phrase but we do it anyway. Assumptions are scripts rehearsed in our brain that fill in the blanks between imperfect facts. The problem is, to our brains they then become the facts and we act upon them accordingly.
I have been for three jobs and didn’t get either of them, I am clearly bad at interviewing, I will never get another job, I am clearly not good enough
No one cares about this job more than I do. People let you down. The only way this report is going to get finished is if I stay up all night and do it myself.
Boss Dave hates unfinished ideas, Barry once went in there and had his head chewed off because he hadn’t thought things through. It’s not worth raising this with Dave until we’re absolutely sure we have a cast iron answer.
Assumptions are related to limiting beliefs but ultimately assumptions prevent creativity and generation of new solutions.
Leaders who want to develop greater creativity within their teams can make quick gains in team energy by just freeing people of their assumptions
When we say this, what are we assuming?
What assumptions are we making here?
If we made a different assumption what solutions might that present?
This has happened once, what is convincing us that it will happen again?
And as a leader in your individual interactions with team members you can unleash additional energy and talent by challenging the assumptions you make of individuals as well. Remember the team’s assumptions of boss-man Dave? We don’t know the whole circumstances and events when Dave chose to berate Barry for his unfinished idea but we do know that folklore within the team has generated the assumption that Dave will only engage with fully-thought through ideas which ultimately means that when the team discovers a problem, until they can find a solution they have assumed that Dave doesn’t want to know. A dangerous strategy that in many a company has led to a disaster unfolding and a hapless leader wondering why did no-one tell me that this was going off the rails? Because you had allowed your team to develop an assumption that they should never bring you problems, only solutions.
We work with imperfect data especially if we’re ever to discover or create something that’s new. So inevitably we are going to encounter assumptions and we will be forced to make interpretations. This cannot be entirely avoided.
But we need to remember how misplaced and unhelpful assumptions and interpretations can limit our capacity to see possibilities and solutions and prompt us to take the unhelpful path.
