Test Your Assumptions

When we want to communicate for results -- to achieve something, to reach shared meaning, we need to constantly clarify and test our assumptions.

Does smiling and nodding mean agreement?

Does silence infer disagreement?

Is that frown on their face a sign of trouble?

What does it all mean?

We get into trouble communicating when we rely on our assumptions as truth. Maybe they are, and maybe they aren't, but my experience has been that more often than not our assumptions are not truth. Not the truth of the people we are seeking shared meaning with.

If you don't test your assumptions they'll keep lying to you.

And, that's probably not what you want.

-- Douglas Brent Smith

Front Range Leadership | Fast, affordable leadership training

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