I took this picture when walking along the Seine River in Paris. It made me wonder, “Why did they do this?” “What were they trying to communicate?” “How did this come to be?” “Was it meant to be beautiful or ugly?” “Was it planned or did the artist or artists just throw this together and get lucky?” “Why is there just one pair of shoes in the corner?” (I wish I could share who did this but I didn’t find a name.)
That brings me to the topic of this week’s blog. Assumptions. In just a few minutes I asked several questions and I could have just has easily made several assumptions about this art.
We’ve all heard the proverb, “When you assume, you make an ass out of you and me.” It suggests that we shouldn’t make assumptions because they could turn out wrong and make everyone involved appear foolish.
In virtual teams assumption can be very powerful. We can’t see what others on our team do on a daily basis, we don’t see their environment, we don’t know if they are on holidays, and we don’t know if the technology they are using is of a lower or different quality than what we’re using.
Yet, when we work in virtual teams we are often more likely to blame the person than the situation. In other words, we become very prone to making the fundamental attribution error, which is the tendency to overestimate the impact of a person’s character on their behavior and underestimate the influence of situational factors on their behaviour.
The Assumptions We Make
We tend to assume we know why our team members do things and it’s usually because they “don’t’ care”, “they’re lazy”, “they lack commitment”, “they have no sense of responsibility”…. You get the idea. Notice how all of these “reasons” reflect a person’s character.
Less often do we come up with reasons like, “Maybe their laptop crashed?”, “Is it a statutory holiday where they live?”, or “What if they experienced a family emergency?”
We All Assumed
I experienced this a few times this week. Work wasn’t completed when I expected it to be completed, meetings were missed, and there were long periods of email silence. In each case, when I asked what had happened, each person admitted they “assumed” something. There were assumptions about availability, deadlines that made sense, and even assumptions that I would be upset.
I even assumed that they would get back to me on time because they normally do. I didn’t reach out to see what was going on because I assumed that things would take place as expected.
The Lesson
The lesson here, for everyone, including myself was COMMUNICATE. Every single time you see yourself making an assumption communicate. Every time you think you know the answer communicate. Unless you’re 100% sure you know something communicate.
Communicate with me and let me know what you learn by watching yourself to see how much you assume this week.
In love, excitement, and freedom,
Priya
Sabini, J., Siepmann, M. & Stein, J. (2001). The really fundamental attribution error in social psychological research. Psychological Inquiry, 12(1), 1-15.
