Test Your Assumptions

Can you remember the last time that you were wrong?

How did it feel to discover your mistake? Do you remember the cause? Could your actions have been built on a false assumption?

We all make assumptions from time to time. It's when we live in the world of assumptions that we really get into deep trouble. The more we assume, the easier it is to take comfort in our assumptions. But, our assumptions are often wrong.

When we're leading a team, developing performance, running a project and doing the important work of a leader we need to check our assumptions at the door. We need to test our thinking and clarify our expectations.

High performance leaders identify and test any assumptions before launching a project or reaching a major decision.

After all, isn't it better to spot your mistakes before you make them?

-- Douglas Brent Smith

Are you developing leaders in your organization? Bring our two-day workshop for supervisors, managers and project managers, Supervising for Success to your location.

Contact me here: doug@frontrangeleadership.com

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What's the problem with anonymous feedback? The list is long. When people can say anything they want, without any accountability, they are sometimes rude. The feedback becomes exaggerated. Not knowing what to do with it (who do you try to please?) it frustrates the person receiving the feedback. Anonymous feedback encourages anti-social comments. It opens up a level of venting that is not healthy for either party. And, rather than building relationships, it tears them down. The best place for anonymous feedback is the garbage. It's too easy to be negative when no one knows who you are. Hold people accountable. Teach them that two-way communication is responsible, respectable, and useful. Let's keep the trash talking on the basketball court and build relationships of worth at work. -- Doug Smith

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It's better to be considered tough and show up tender than to be thought tender and show up tough. -- doug smith

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