Today, I had the opportunity and pleasure to hear a talk given by Dan Heath, co-author of Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard.
After Dan’s talk, people had the opportunity to take a picture with him. One of the photographers asked his subject, using her camera, “How do I focus?” Her response was that the camera would take care of that.
This brought a question to my mind, “Where and how do I expect others to focus?” In reviewing my notes, I was reminded that Dan had said something similar which leads me to edit the question to, “Where and how do I expect others to know what I know?”
He said to beware the curse of knowledge, where we know something and expect others to know the same thing.
Assumptions, assumptions, assumptions – there they go again getting us into trouble or at least thrown off course. It did not take long for me to have this lesson meted out to me after sending an email and not making clear who the recipients were. It caused a reply from the leader of a particular group asking if the entire group had received it. I thought my ‘good idea’ used in the subject line would make that clear.
A good reminder for me to stand in the shoes of the recipient, to look at what I write as if they are reading it, to be clear, to be of value. Hopefully, I have done this in this post.
Where and when are you making assumptions? …expect others to know what you know? What trouble does it get you into? What can you do to prevent this?
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Alan, you make a great point here. All to often I catch myself doing exactly that…assuming the other person grasps the meaning of my communication and is instantly on the same page. Rarely so. At times, actually ‘understanding’ the exact opposite of my intended message. ‘How can that be’, I find myself thinking. Am I speaking a foreign language…do they not see the words coming out of my mouth!
As you so well stated, we tend to ‘expect’ that others have the same knowledge or are aware of the same things that we are. That they hold as important the same things we do. I need only reflect on the many times I have not fully connected with something someone was saying to me to appreciate how common this is. When communicating with others we must strive to be crystal clear while at the same time understanding that their frame of reference, as well as the context they are holding, may differ widely from ours. Both will affect how they hear and respond to the message we “assume’ we are conveying.