We’ve been having some trouble house-training our puppy. And for a couple of weeks, we couldn’t figure out why she wasn’t learning the routine.
We wondered what we were doing wrong, and it was only after a visit to the vet that we discovered she had an infection that made house-training impossible.
We had made sweeping assumptions about the dog and ourselves. And she was unable to tell us anything in a way we could understand.
Although a simplistic example, this serves to remind us of the frustration and damage assumptions can make.
And people you work with may be unable to communicate with you in a way that clarifies misunderstandings.
Action – What assumptions are you jumping to about a person or situation you find annoying? What steps can you take TODAY to understand what’s really going on?
The small amount of time and effort you need to investigate is more than worth it to clean up the mess!