Last week we talked about why it’s important not to guess what someone else might be thinking and then base our actions on this (“Why it pays not to read your client’s mind“). Last week we talked about taking action anyways, and stepping away from the considerations of how it might be received.

Today, we’re looking at another option for how to deal with those situations. Let’s say we believe we know how a comment or action might come across. One way to handle it is to ask a question to understand if our belief is right or wrong. The catch is, we usually ask the wrong questions. Here’s an analogy that shows what kind of questions we ask:

Let’s assume I show you the number sequence below. I tell you that the sequence follows a rule, and you have to figure out what the rule is. You can guess the next number, and I will tell you whether this is a possible next number or not. You have to determine the rule based on this information.

Which number would you guess as the next number?

I did this activity just last week in a workshop with leaders at an IT company. Everyone decided to guess the number 8. That is in fact the guess that most people would make. However, given the task at hand, this is a bad guess.

The task was to figure out the rule behind the numbers – not the next number. There are many possible rules that could be behind this sequence.

It could be that each number is 2 more than the previous number (that’s the assumption most of us make). The rule could also be that each number is bigger than the previous one and it doesn’t matter by how much. If this is the rule, the next number could be 7 or 14 or many other options. The rule could also be that the numbers are any integer and nothing else matters. In this case the next number could be any integer. The ‘rule’ could also be that the numbers are random. Even more possibilities for the next number (even though there are many more possible rules to explain the sequence, we’ll leave it at this).

We don’t know the rule as we make the guess. The problem with the guess is that we have a tendency to want to confirm our assumption instead of trying to find a way to ‘test’ it or to disprove our assumptions.

This is called ‘confirmation bias’. We want to get confirmation of our assumption, we want to be right – and we want to look smart. This drives us to guess the number 8.

When you look at the possible rules above, a guess of 8 does not rule out any of these possible rules. Any of these rules could be true after I learned that 8 would fit as the next number. So, I have not learned anything new. Had we guessed 7 as the next number we would learn new information and get closer to figuring out what the rule might be.

We do the same when we ask questions about our assumptions or beliefs. They tend to aim to confirm what we think – instead of aiming to get us new information and help us learn something.

If we want to create something new, if we want to drive innovation, we need to challenge our assumptions constantly.

Take the Next Step

Pay attention to moments when you make assumptions, when you have a hunch about something or you believe to know what someone thinks or what action will come next. Take a moment to think of at least one question that tests – and possibly disproves – your assumption, instead of questions that aim to confirm your assumption. Ask these questions.