From adobe stock - an image of hands holding up a cardboard sign “Assumptions create trouble” tagged as related to Marriage.
Assumptions are risky things, but life would be impossible without them.
An assumption is something that you accept as true without question or proof. If you make a decision or take an action based on an assumption that turns out to be false, the consequences range from embarrassing to catastrophic.
As an engineer I learned that assumptions are necessary since we can’t know everything with certainty, but you’ve got to treat them with skepticism. First year engineering students are taught to state their assumptions so they can be examined before they are accepted as true.
Putting this into practice is tricky. Just deciding when to leave to meet someone for lunch involves making a variety of assumptions about traffic, the cost of being early or late, as well as how the other person is going to navigate those same questions. For example, I tried to be on time with my kids recently when meeting a friend who has a 1-year-old. By both trying to be on time, we were both about 10 minutes late. It was perfect!
Translating the lessons I learned as an engineer into a system for my daily decision making has been tricky. My solution, rather than overthinking every little decision, is to keep a checklist of assumptions that meet three important criteria:
They’re common
They’re often wrong
When they’re wrong bad things happen.
When an assumption meets these three criteria, it’s worth my time and energy to validate it, and figure out whether I’m walking into a trap.
Admiral Ackbar reminding us all that invalid and weighty assumptions should be validated.
Bear in mind that we all have our unique models of the world, so each of us will have a different list of assumptions that need to be validated.
Common assumptions that are wrong and matter
To help you jumpstart your own list of which assumptions to validate, I spent some time reflecting on the things I watch out for.