Are you prone to making assumptions or jumping to conclusions?
In this short, but sweet blog post by Seth Godin, he makes a great point about this behavior.
Seth brings up that perhaps you did not get enough information about where you landed right now on a particular topic or even a situation. Then, he states the ideal is walking your way gradually to conclusions then we’re a lot more likely to find something useful.
I love that visual when thinking about how at times leaders react emotionally to one another while engaging in feedback loops. (Credit Hugo Boss for the sweet photo)
I don’t think any one of us looks that sweet while jumping to conclusions…
Perhaps the stress is high right now? Maybe they are taking on a growth opportunity? Perhaps you have a relationship with a colleague or boss that is triggering emotions you do not like?
Many times the circumstances we find ourselves in trigger emotions and we let them, these emotions, cloud our perceptions of messages others are sending to us at that moment.
Don’t get me wrong, sometimes people at work are toxic, but the moment you allow them to elicit an emotional response that could change how you would normally/logically react, you give up control.
Also, when you are emotional, you are less likely to truly listen to the feedback loop and then are prone to jump to conclusions based upon past feedback about a situation or from a particular person, vs walking your way through the feedback, noting, and then coming to a conclusion that is based upon listening and accounting for all of the data given.
This is not easy.
We are emotional and territorial and find much of our identity in what we do for work. So, when we are faced with negative feedback, instinct wants to take over and we need to take a step back and work our way through. Walk as Seth puts it, vs jumping to a conclusion, which then means we are gradually working our way toward a conclusion while taking in each detail of information about the situation vs making any quick assumptions.
Jason A. Belt 