Assumption - The Mistake of Understanding

A large part of our life is invested in activities that we feel will lead to more success. Of course, our perspectives about success are different. However, all our pursuits are aimed at getting onto or accelerating on this path to success.

Once this success is experienced, you start aspiring for more and want to scale up. But you soon realize that the road to success requires you to work with and through people. In fact, the scale you eventually achieve depends entirely on how well you connect and engage with people and the world around you. More about that later.

This article is for those who wish to experience success and for those who want to scale up successful ideas or enterprises. It covers the 3rd common mistake people make.

The idea behind this article is to help you self-realize and not merely to educate. So, as usual, read it well and introspect. If you have questions, please reach out. If you have realizations, please do share.

For the sake of recap, I am stating the source of ‘Mistakes’ once again. All mistakes are rooted in attempting exploration while remaining entangled in the web of our own compulsive personalities.

The 3rd mistake we make in such pursuits are the Assumptions about our understanding of others.

The Ground Reality

Aligning people to our goals requires a clear understanding of oneself and the people we wish to align with. But do we have the time or willingness to understand ourselves and others? The Lust for achieving short term goals vs. the Lure of long-term capacity building constantly stresses us out.

This is the key reason for committing one of the biggest execution-related mistakes while Scaling up our Successes. We resort to using tools like niceness, material wealth, fear, and manipulation (saam, daam, dand, bhed as in Sanskrit) but still end up with poor results. Making this mistake is like setting ourselves up for failure.

Back in 1982, Walker Kiechel wrote an article titled “Corporate Strategists Under Fire” (Fortune 27 December 1982, p38), where he asserted that “Less than 10 percent of effectively formulated strategies were successfully implemented”. All forms of strategies for assuming scale (Balanced Scorecard, PEST Model, Blue Ocean Strategy, etc.) need effective implementation.

To implement these strategies, the essential requirement is that our people need to be aligned with them. They need to believe in these strategies by first being a part of their making and then executing.

But our mistake of Assumptions remains the spoiler. Let us see how it manifests. Consider the following case.

Susan is into the business of retailing home furnishing and decorative items. She operates an omnichannel (e-commerce + brick and mortar stores) business model.

Susan informed her team that their target for the year was to achieve a sales turnover of $10 million with a profit of 30%. She declared that this turnover would come from customers, both old and new, making at least three purchases each and that the company will open three new stores in the year. She motivated her team and spoke enthusiastically about what the future held for them.

However, after six months, she found that her sales were not on track. The attrition rate had increased, and there were more customer complaints than before. Despite marketing budgets, new customer acquisitions remained a challenge. What went wrong?

When she conducted a review, her team spoke about all the good and the bad things that happened and what they should be doing differently. But nothing translated into results.

During a chance interaction with one of her managers, she sensed a hint of non-belief. The manager said, “I always felt that these goals were far-fetched, but I saw no point in expressing my concern. I thought no one would believe me”.

What was going on? To understand this, let us first understand the five types of assumptions we make.

1. Assuming ‘Agreement is Enough’

Despite providing a platform for people to express dissenting opinions, this remains a common issue. The root lies in the assumption that understanding would translate into action.

Many people understand that they need to wake up early in the morning but struggle to do so. It is not just their habits and behaviours that are the spoilers; they lack understanding about their own compulsions of body, mind, emotions, and energy. They fail to understand that our Habits and our Attitudes are prompted by our body and mind only.

Your mastery over your own emotions and energy will lead to real engagement with people.

It is then that you start to understand and appreciate people’s real compulsions and design your pursuits of scale.

2. Assuming ‘Your Vision and Values Inspire Others’

Your excitement over your vision and your conviction around your values leads you to inspire your people with them. As you talk to them with passion, they might get inspired at that moment. Soon after that, their fear, greed, and lust creep in.

Your grand vision, to solve a problem for the entire planet, comes crashing down due to your inability to solve the problems of fear, greed, and lust within your own organization!

Do you not see the same phenomenon in disintegrating families and relationships?

Your real work lies in engaging with people so that they become conscious of their own fear, greed, and lust while pursuing the shared vision alongside you.

3. Assuming ‘People Identify with your Idea of Growth’

When Susan found out about one of her key manager’s long-standing problems with her alcoholic husband, she understood the reason for her low motivation.

The manager could not give her job the required attention, and due to the ongoing marital issue, she could not afford to lose her job either. Hence, she agreed to pursue the goals in all honesty but could not give it the required effort and focus.

Her idea of growth was different from Susan’s. A state of low engagement led to Susan being utterly ignorant of this fact.

People pass through a variety of life situations. Your best efforts at motivating them to get discounted by their existential realities. Your assumption that they will either perform or perish and that you would fire underperformers does not really lead to your success, does it?

Remain engaged with your people’s truths. Don’t be blinded by your own.

4. Assuming an ‘Ability to Participate’

Mistaking people’s silence, nods, or even consent towards the goals does not necessarily guarantee their willing participation. People struggle with life’s fundamental issues like how to manage their time, desires, and activities. A successful past does not ensure future success.

Each time Virat Kohli or Ronaldo enter the field, they do not rest on their past glory or failures. They play the game afresh. Any assumptions or preconceived notions may lead to failure.

Live in the truth. Each day is a new game. Even your best people need help in managing their time, desires, and activities. Help your team realize this as you go through your own realizations.

Remember, your own under or over expectations about yourself also stem from your past failures and glory. Shed it off.

5. Assuming that ‘People can be Managed’

When goals are set, an assumption that you can manage people, is the ultimate spoiler.

Since performance is the only goal for all, most policies get framed to ensure high performance, even from non-performers and average performers. Such policies and procedures lead to high performers becoming the center of attention. This causes strain on the fabric of the organization due to which ‘heroes’ start emerging. Such power centers soon become toxic.

While “Performance” is a non-negotiable aspect of every organization, an absolute focus on performance gives “Culture” (which is the real road for getting to ‘performance’) a backseat.

Unless assumptions about abilities, attitudes, willingness, and dreams are dropped, and one lives in the terrains of existential truth, real engagement with life is impossible.

This is possible only by attaining a certain degree of consciousness about ourselves and others. We need to accept people as they are and not try too hard to drive or transform them, as it may stretch them too thin. We should help them accept themselves.

As this happens, they tap into their potential and choose Growth, while survival becomes a mere by-product. They begin to improve their capabilities, skills, and attitudes and start collaborating with others, thereby helping everyone become better.

It is no longer a race where Only The Fittest Survive. It is no longer an Animal Life. Scaling up goes beyond mere Survival. A conscious human being makes scaling up a Joyous Process, a life blossoming with Unlimited Possibilities, a Life Of Evolution!

~ Sameer Kamboj