Do Your Assumptions Mess Up Your Stakeholder Relationships?

Whilst we are hard-wired to make assumptions and take short cuts, at times our assumptions about ourselves and others may stunt the growth of positive relationships.

What are your assumption patterns? Do you tend to make positive assumptions or negative assessments of yourself and others? And do these vary according to your stakeholders – would your assumption patterns be different for a boss, peers, team members, customers and business partners?

We make assumptions at all stages of a relationship: before we meet someone, based on first impressions and even in established relationships – and not always for the best.

Here are three ways we do that.

1. Self-Assumptions

Who you see in the mirror, is rarely who others see. This can have its upsides. Recently, a client shared how they were stunned when in the course of one week, two colleagues described him as compassionate. He had himself down as a logical, straight-talking, results-oriented task-master. I describe this as an upside. I’m not so sure he saw it that way.

The downsides are when the reality others see is not as positive as the self-image. One client believed herself to be an inclusive, fair-minded, empathetic leader, whereas her team viewed her as practically the exact opposite.

A divergent self-assumption can destroy trust with stakeholders, creating toxicity in relationships.

2. Your Assumptions of Others

Do you tend to err towards more positive or negative assumptions about others? With scant hard data to draw on, are you likely to paint a picture of a new team member that is favourable, or unfavourable? With few prior insights, would you picture the new strategy head as someone who will preach theory-driven scenarios before consulting colleagues to understand business realities? Or would you be likely to decide the new sales head is a gem because she has a friendly smile in her LinkedIn profile picture and has written an article that gels with your viewpoint?

Even in longer term relationships, when perhaps a colleague hasn’t built the most positive image, are you open to them changing?

An interesting experiment is to change your assumption of a colleague you find difficult to deal with. This might be someone who constantly makes excuses as to why something won’t work and won’t readily support your projects. Can you erase that view and create a more positive image of someone who simply wants to review the data and then will commit? Which might be the more fruitful approach?

3. Aligning with Assumptions You Attribute to Others 

You might assume a person to have specific behavioural traits, which are not aligned with your own. Nevertheless, you change your behaviour to align with those assumed traits – only to discover your assumptions were mistaken.

You’re about to meet the new COO. You’ve caught a glimpse of him walking the floor. Just from his demeanour you assume he is more interested in metrics than people – that he doesn’t want to waste time with fluffy small talk when he can be looking at dashboards. Meanwhile, you’re a true people person who likes to get to know someone before talking business.

You get into the meeting room with him, quickly say hello and jump straight into an analysis of performance data. You appear slightly machine-like. You don’t take the opportunity to be yourself and then read the person’s body language for clues. Instead, you’ve assumed his preferences and changed your style to meet them.

Yet during the course of the meeting it transpires he is highly people-oriented himself. You’ll be seeing him again. How will you manage subsequent interactions? Keep playing the ‘part’, which might alienate others who know you? Or switch back to who you are at heart - and possibly confuse the COO? Either way, it probably doesn’t lay the strongest of foundations for your relationship.

This behaviour takes making assumptions to another level. You’ve assumed the behavioural traits of someone you aren’t, simply to meet the imagined expectations of another person.

Tips to Resist Assumptions

We all make assumptions, so it’s not easy to suspend them. Still, we can at least make an effort.

1. Self-Assumptions

To avoid mistaken assumptions of how you are perceived, observe how others react in your presence. If this is at odds with your self-image, consider why. What can you do to narrow the gap? You could try talking to people, but if your assumptions are strongly out of kilter with others’ perceptions of you, you may meet with platitudes. If it fits with your organization or team’s culture, conduct a 360 – on the condition that you will be open to the feedback and take it constructively.

2. Your Assumptions of Others

Observe and then decide. We never know what other people are experiencing, so resist the temptation to pigeon-hole too quickly.

3. Aligning with Assumptions You Attribute to Others

Whilst it’s great to get clues about another person before you meet them, overly modifying your behaviour before you meet in person may not be ideal. A possibly more effective route is to remain professional and approachable - and observe others’ behaviour over time. To be effective, you may still need to modify your behaviour to gel well with their style, just don’t be too hasty to make radical changes.