Have you ever listened to a radio show? For a long time? Like…years?

The mind abhors a disembodied voice. It’s only natural that it creates a picture of the person behind the voice. Our mind gives the voice a home. A body. A face.

Over time, we connect to that image that we’ve created for the voice. We build a relationship with it.

Then we meet the person behind the radio voice.

If I’m prepared for it, I can handle this moment just fine. I turn my face muscles to a carefully managed neutral while my mind is fiercely editing, erasing and reconstituting the last 10 years of radio listening history.

If I’m not prepared for it…well, I don’t take responsibility for what my face does. We aren’t always on the same team.

Assumptions, Presumptions and Flat Out Conjectures

What happened? I create a picture of reality that wasn’t based on something other than reality.

I don’t even know where these mental images of radio people come from. They just pop up.

And because they do…they become real to me.

This is so dangerous and so common for leaders.

Possibilities, dreams, visions, challenges, threats, partial conversations overheard, that weird look when you walked into the meeting….

A very large element of my work, as a coach and a consultant, is to help leaders let go of the false images of reality they’ve created.

Many leaders aren’t prepared for this shift in realities.

In fact, many are so attached to the image in their mind, they appear to go through a grieving process when this reality changes: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and (hopefully) acceptance.

It’s only then that they can get to work on building the actual reality they want.

I want to be very clear here: These aren’t fringe people who are a little “off” anyways. This is you and me.

We create constructs in our mind to explain what we are experiencing. It’s just that we often don’t have all the information.

So, our constructs are wrong.

But are we willing to accept it?

What We Tend to Make Assumptions About

While imagination can take us all over the map – there are some paths more frequently traveled. Here are the top 10 mistaken beliefs leaders often have:

• Success Forever: Many leaders fall into the. “We’ve got the game figured out – we can’t fail.” To that, I say, Sears, Kodak, Blockbuster and Radio Shack.
• We Know the Competition, the Environment, the Industry: Yes, likely you do have deep knowledge in these areas. And that is the trap. Confusing what you really know for what you think you know.
• We Are Masters in Our Field: “We’re the best. We’ve saturated the market.” Even if this were the case, it’s helpful to remember: For every Blackberry, there is an iPhone. For every iPhone, there is a Samsung Galaxy.
• Those People (The Board, Our Shareholders, The Staff, Etc.) Would Never Support It: It is so common as to be nearly predictable. A leader will describe their vision to me. Then tell me how they can’t pursue it because “Those People” won’t support it. Then I talk to “Those People” and they tell me how impatient they are to pursue the vision, but the leader won’t act.
• I Don’t Need to Talk to Them, They’ll All Support It: On the other hand, there is the leader that is so in love with his or her own idea that they believe everyone else had sufficient time to meet the idea, build a relationship and make a commitment. This consistently goes badly.
• Conflict: When I first began to mediate professionally, I was pretty clever. I would begin by saying, “This conversation is like the X-Files. The Truth is out there. But it probably isn’t here.” No one else thought it was clever. I gave it enough tries to be sure.

I don’t say that anymore. But it is still true. Conflicts are almost entirely comprised of and fueled by imagination, conjecture and lies. I’m not sure if I’ve ever mediated a dispute where both sides were starting from the same set of “facts.”

• Value: Business owners routinely have a dramatically inaccurate estimate of what their business is worth. Whatever you are thinking – you are probably wrong. (Hint: The only accurate answer is the one a buyer writes on a check.) Most massively overvalue their company. A significant number undervalue their companies.
• Cost / Effort: Some leaders routinely underestimate how much effort or cost is involved in making something work. Others overestimate. Between the two, I think the first group probably accomplishes more but also experiences greater casualties. Then latter group rarely gets moving – the “cost” being a great excuse for inaction.
• Fear of Being Found Out as a Fraud: One of the deepest fears of some of the most successful leaders I’ve met is the fear that others will find out that they don’t know how to do something. Or that they struggle in a particular area. Or that the façade of “having it all together” will come crumbling down. It’s paralyzing for these leaders and often one reason for “end of game” fumbles.
• What “They” Are Thinking: Many leaders construct whole conversations in their heads about what “they” are thinking. I have often been told, in great detail, what someone else is thinking. No evidence required. Just the innate ability to read minds that most of us have.

What Kinds of Problems This Creates:

• Limits Growth: You can’t grow or plan growth well when you aren’t working with facts.
• Change: Change is often pursued (or resisted) in reaction to the wrong things. When change is the right choice, it is often poorly navigated because “everyone hates change.” No, they don’t- people actually love changes, especially those that make things better. (You aren’t trying to introduce changes that will make things worse, are you??) People even understand difficult changes when well communicated and led.
• Conflict: Inaccurate, incomplete or inconsistent information or “stories” that we tell ourselves about what is going on is the basis or fuel in nearly all conflicts. A dramatically large degree of conflict (or its intensity) comes from what we don’t know but made up.
• Profit or Impact: Without actual information we miscalculate success. Perhaps because we think it is too daunting and so we don’t try. Or because we underestimate. Either way, time spent in the rabbit hole is not time spent producing meaningful results.

The Three Things We Need to Do

First, Accept That Leadership Is Largely in Our Minds: We can’t possibly know everything. We can’t possibly understand everything. Sometimes there isn’t time, resources or necessary cooperation. But if we can accept that some of what we are persuaded of may not be factually grounded – we can relate to it with an open hand.

Second, Ask: “What’s the Evidence for That?” I might ask myself this question. I might ask others. Others might ask me. The main thing I’m trying to do is avoid, “confirmation bias.” That is, only accepting information that supports a conclusion I’ve already arrived at. Instead, I need to take an objective look at what is happening. Where is the evidence?

Third, Become an Agile Leader: No athlete moves precisely accurately all the time. The greatest athletes are those who can easily shift, recover and adjust.

The ability to change directions quickly and gracefully in sports is called “agility.” At the beginning of any attempt to learn any new movement, it’s difficult, uncomfortable and not graceful. But as you keep learning to move in new ways, it becomes easier to move in even more new ways.

Leaders need to quickly learn to move to the firm ground of grounded reality.

How I Do It

I’m not perfect but here is what works for me: I tend to be imaginative. I can develop clear ideas about everything from radio personalities to what you are thinking, right now, as you read this.

I’ve learned, that while I’m often a pretty good guesser, I’m not always right.

I’m right enough, often enough, to follow my hunch. But I’ve been wrong often enough to embarrass myself. Over and over again.

So, I’ve learned to follow my hunch by first looking for evidence. I pursue the evidence until the hunch is no longer a hunch but now either discarded, adjusted or a proven fact.

Then I try to act.

My ability to be a pretty good guesser makes me a good consultant.

My ability to follow the hunch and find proof, before acting, is what gives value to the client.

When I forget to do either – I often end up just embarrassing myself again.

You might be a good guesser too. But don’t embarrass yourself. Find where the evidence is. Then act.

Take good care,

Christian

New Book! I’ve recently published a new book called Conflict and Leadership: How to Harness Conflict to Create Better Leaders and Build Thriving Teams. In it, I help leaders look at how they can use incidents of conflict to actually grow a strong team and organization. If you are a leader or serve on a team, you need this book. You can get it here: www.conflictandleadership.com