He thought, she thought, I thought, we all thought but we were all damn wrong! The damage has been done. Boom!
Familiar?
How do we repair lost relations because of too many assumptions. Good if they are correct or at least positive. What if your assumption was wrong and hurt someone deeply, or destroyed a colleague's career, or a friend's family, or your own? What if you assumed wrongly what your client meant? There are agents I know who are blabbers and put words in the mouths of their clients. They went way ahead and beyond. Because they forgot to listen well, deals went awry.
Why do some people carelessly assume and judge? Why are some people able to hold their thoughts & bite their tongues before blurting out some things?
When I was younger I did a lot of guessing why and what happened. I thought the directions in the exam meant this or that. With my assumptions, my grades assumed to fail too. So I learned to ask clarifications when I don't understand some thing. It turned out most of my classmates had the same queries but were either too lazy or afraid to ask. Some didn't ask for sheer lack of interest.
Same when travelling. I prefer to ask for directions than guess and go down a road only to find out we were supposed to traverse the other way! What a waste of time and gas!
I'm sure you have your own situations when assuming made an ass out of you, as it did me.
I thought about this. I think if people will practice active listening it will be evaded, or lessened. What is active listening?. It is when you really pay attention to what a person is saying. There are times when we are talking to a person and we think that person is listening attentively, nodding his head as we speak only to realize he was spacing out! In the end, he did not understand what we meant and just assumed his interpretation from parts of the conversation. So, with active listening, when there are unclear things, you can ask for clarifications right away. Thus, less misunderstanding and less mistakes, less arguments, less stress.
Now what if you don't know a person and just overheard something he or she did? Then from that situation you just assume his or her personality. That is outright prejudice. You did not assume; you prejudged a person you do not even know. Worse, you were either eavesdropping or overhearing people talk. Overhearing happens sometimes and we should take things with a grain of salt or just be amused.
What is assumption? According to Merriam &Webster, assumption (noun) is defined as:
1. taking to or upon oneself (new position); 2. the act of laying claim to or taking possession of something (assumption of power); 3. an assuming that something is true (our topic).
On hindsight, often, people assume to pretend to be knowledgeable and not ignorant. The consequence of this is stupidity, or embarrassment. Knowledge is simply to know that you do not know when you do not know; and to know that you know when you know. Easy-peasy distinction between assuming and knowing, right?
I estimate that 2 out of the 5 people we talk to or give orders to come back to us with a question, "What was it again?". Though, at times, it is annoying, it is better than assuming something else and doing what they thought was right when actually it was wrong. Though fallible, we can practice to be careful. Nothing wrong with that; rather than be an all-time ass!
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