Scrolling BBC News online last week, a headline caught my eye:
“The Simple Trick to Change Other People’s Minds”.
My hackles went straight up.
First thought reaction, “That looks blatantly more about how to manipulate other people than it is about personal development.” Next thought… “Maybe it only triggers people who place a high value on honesty and transparency, like me.” Then… “I still can’t believe they’d publish something like this.”
I dug in, skimming the article, daggers in my mind at the ready to attack. But what I found was… not what I expected.
The article outlined three key ‘tricks’ and none were underhand:
Get personal: Share first-hand experience to invite empathy.
Be Curious: Approach others with a mindset of learning, not winning.
Show respect: Maintain civility, even, and especially, when views differ.
These aren't manipulation tactics. They are the cornerstones of meaningful dialogue. I had assumed the worst from the clickbait headline, and I was wrong.
So, what’s all this got to do with assumptions?
Everything.
Although the knee-jerk reaction I had to the article was based on a false assumption, it was harmless. But some assumptions carry a lot more weight, especially when it comes to the impacts of decisions and actions from within teams and organizations.
Contrary to popular belief, making assumptions isn’t bad - they serve a useful purpose. 1Tversky and Kahneman’s foundational work on cognitive heuristics shows our brains are wired to take mental shortcuts and to act without needing a full rational process each time. We’d be paralyzed without them.
This podcast by NLP Matters explains it well:
“At least 2 million ‘bits’ of information per second are available to us in the external environment. The current science tells us that as humans, the most we can take in is around about 130 bits per second out of the more than 2 million bits. All the rest of the information is pretty much deleted from our experience of reality. To process this information effectively we delete, distort, or generalise it. These strategies ensure the volume of data is manageable.”
So, the problem isn’t that we make assumptions. The problem is that we don’t stop to check out the high-risk ones, where possible, because every assumption is a guess based on confirmation bias. This is the tendency to seek, interpret, and remember information that confirms our already existing beliefs or assumptions.
Research by 2Nickerson showed that this kind of bias makes us less likely to consider contradictory evidence, even if it is staring us in the face.
We may not be aware of every assumption but it’s well worthwhile taking a step back. The chances are there’s always something we’re not seeing.
What this looks like in teams
In organizations, these dynamics are everywhere. Those closest to strategic decision-making have the clearest view of the rationale behind them. This informs their ability to interpret and respond to information. But the frontline teams? They’re frequently left to interpret actions without that vital content. That disconnect, known as information asymmetry, means people who are further from the decision-making stage are more likely to fill in the blanks with assumptions.
Trust plays a huge role here. Imagine you’re an employee receiving news about a(nother) restructure
You’ll go along with it if you trust that what you’re being told is in your interests (or if not, why not)
…if you trust that what you’re being told is the best current course of action (or if not, why not)
…if you trust that the support you’ll get as you play your role to go along with this change of direction will be there (or if not, why not).
Conversely, if you don’t have that trust, you’re left guessing.
Do you throw yourself into it? Do you disengage a bit because you can’t get behind it? Or maybe you take action and start looking around?
Unchecked assumptions are like rumours - they spread and can lead to collective mistrust, which affects morale. This is a form of misalignment that turns into costly problems.
A small shift can make a big impact
While assumptions help us move fast, only shared clarity helps us move the right direction.
Sometimes, all it takes is one person asking, “Are we assuming this, or do we know it?” to change the course of a conversation or a project.
As Nancy Kline says in ‘More Time to Think’:
"The quality of everything we do depends on the quality of the thinking we do first. And the quality of that thinking depends on how we treat each other while we are thinking. That includes surfacing and challenging untrue assumptions."
Going further, checking assumptions can happen by listening to others with genuine curiosity. It’s a real skill to be able to suspend your thoughts and convictions to hear different perspectives. I know I’m still working on it.
At Mirror Mirror, we help teams pause, reflect, and work on what’s actually going on, surfacing assumptions, closing perception gaps, and aligning with shared clarity. It is not about profiles or frameworks but about clarity in context.
Tversky, A. and Kahneman, D. (1974) Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases. Science, 185 (4157): 1124–1131.
Nickerson, R. S. (1998) Confirmation bias: A ubiquitous phenomenon in many guises. Review of General Psychology 2(2): 175–220.