Your Assumptions And Your Work

CHAPTER

YOUR ASSUMPTIONS AND YOUR WORK

Imagine that during an evening with some consultants, you extract these bits from conversations about our work: “Whatever we do, we must do in a spirit of love…We get what we can and get out…We are all trying to make some small positive difference…Let’s face it, each of us wants to do better than the next guy...It’s all about the marketplace and coming out on top.” Each comment expresses a unique view on the consulting world; each reflects different assumptions about why we do this work; each would lead to different actions. And that’s what this chapter is about: The assumptions behind our work.

We all have assumptions, but are we aware of them? Our statements and actions reflect our assumptions, but do we know that? People we have worked with regularly could probably tell us what some of our assumptions are, but can we? You could make good guesses at my assumptions, having read this far in this book. I will to move you from guessing to knowing, but not before asking you to do a little assuming yourself: What are the assumptions that underlie your work? Consider the beliefs you hold that you act upon as if they were the absolute truth—I think that is what an assumption is. What do you assume about people? Organizations? The marketplace? Yourself? Work? Life? Your place in the world? Write down at least three assumptions that guide you in your work. That’s three assumptions from hundreds that you hold. Only three. Your clients could write down many more.

What is the importance of your assumptions? One reason your clients continue to use you is assumptions: Yours match theirs, are complementary or intriguing. Clients usually seek ease of relationship, rather than difficulty, when selecting their consultants. If a client knows you hold quite different assumptions than they, you will both need to give more time to your work relationship. Sometimes this is exactly what your both seeking the opportunity to see the world from someone operating with different assumptions. For example, interesting discussions have occurred between a client that assumes people basically lazy and have to be pushed to work,

and a consultant that assumes people are self-motivated and seeking meaning in their work. Or, the same assumptions can leave no room for any discussion.

I will offer three assumptions; you may have detected these in earlier chapters, but I will but them forth here. These assumptions profoundly affect what I do with my clients and my life. They often go unexpressed, but they are always there. These are beliefs I hold and act upon as if they were the truth.

The World Does Not Make Sense The world does not make sense; we make sense of the world. Most of the order we see in the world, we project onto it. The world has an order of its own, most of which is beyond our comprehension. There is not very much around us that we understand in any depth, but to live means taking action on what we do “know”. Though we control very little in this world, we talk like we are in control.

Picture an ice skater, gliding confidently across the frozen surface and unaware of how thin the ice really is, how many cracks are in it, and what lurks in the depths below. That ice is the world as we make sense of it, as we have created it. It holds us to the extent that it makes sense to us. We create the ice we skate upon by continuing to skate. Our skating keeps us from sinking into the depths. We skate with the assumption that the ice will continue to support us. We skate presumptuously, audaciously, as if we know what we are doing. We have no alternative but to skate, to impose our sense on the world. It is a great mistake for us to think that the world actually makes our kind of sense. In truth, a differently ordered, even chaotic, real world lies beneath the sense we impose on it. To acknowledge this truth is a threat to the reality we create and impose.

I consult through this view of the world. I myself and others skate and create their meanings. Holding this assumption opens me to alternative meanings. When the world does something

“crazy”, I am more like to say yes to it, to accept that “craziness” and be curious about it. I will adjust to it more quickly than someone who does think the world makes sense in a way that we can understand it. And, I will also be in doubt more often and lack the anchor that comes with knowing that the world makes sense.

The Most Important Work Issues Are Life Issues This assumption shows up frequently in my work. I operate as if it were an absolute truth; it frames my thinking and my questions. I “know” it is true, and confirm that knowledge daily. Our energy for working rises noticeably when we are working on what matters in our lives—not just our assigned work. Notice what happens when work helps people see, grow, empower themselves, find happiness, increase self worth, work together, and discover themselves in what they do. People are brought to life; they find energy for the work that goes beyond their job descriptions and formal roles; they pursue the work because it is life-giving. And notice what happens when the work is primarily about describing a product, improving systems, creating procedures, saving money, making money, or getting this place to be more efficient. People care less about it and that shows. They do what is required of them, because it is their job. My assumption guides me toward looking for what in this work might feed people’s lives outside of work? I “know” that any major change effort must be firmly linked to people’s life aspirations.

A corollary: If my client and I are talking about saving money, developing a product, or plant efficiencies, and we think that this is the only point, we are missing the point. We cannot pursue cost efficiencies or product development as ends in themselves. We must be motivated to pursue them because they have something to do with what is important in our lives. Our motivation flows to the extent that we find meaning that goes beyond the savings, the efficiencies—the more immediate demands the business is placing on us. I look for meaning that transcends the immediately obvious. To the extent that I find it and can help others find it, a deeper source of energy is tapped in the organization.

When I play tennis, I don’t play as hard as I do because the game of tennis is important. It is just a game, and I am not even very good at it. I play hard because it allows me to exercise some parts of myself that are important to my self-concept. Concentration, discipline, camaraderie, achievement, power, competition, health, vigor—these are the meaningful parts of myself that I give expression to when I play tennis. And tennis is important only because of all that I gain through it.

When I read a book, I am not doing it to see how fast I can read or how many pages I can read or how many books I can read. I read to allow others to affect my thinking, my imagination. The primary product of my reading is not eighty-seven pages per hour. The primary measure of my tennis game is not the final score. And the primary definition of the health of a corporation is not last quarter’s profits. The pages, the score, and the profits are each indicators that deserve attention. It makes no more sense to evaluate a corporation entirely on quarterly profits than it does to evaluate my reading entirely on my pages read per hour, or to evaluate my tennis entirely on my score. My search for meaning in my work goes beyond the numbers that are so readily available. I see them as standing for, representing, something that is more important. I respect the numbers and try to find their place in a larger perspective. I have just as much difficulty with a client who sees the numbers as an end in themselves as I would with a person who brags about how much he or she has read but is unable to tell me what the book was about, or with a tennis player who believes that the final score is all that matters.

I want to help people work on what is important in their lives and particularly on those issues that involve work. This often means helping them gain another perspective on what their life is about so that they can see what work is about. For a leadership team, it may mean figuring out what they would be proud of doing together in their division. For a work group, it may mean identifying what professionalism is in their work and what it has to do with what they want out of their lives. For an individual, it could mean laying out some life goals and deciding what could be done to

realize some of those goals over the next twenty years. For a client who has been focused on the numbers, it may mean searching for the meaning behind the numbers.

We Do Make a Difference . . . and It Is Not That Important I continue to struggle with this assumption; I belief it, but it is not easy to live with. What I contribute through my work and in my life is not world-shaping or profound. I could stop writing this book, stop working, stop living, and it would not make that much difference. Yes, I do make a difference—and no, it is not all that important. What is true for me is true for you and everyone else.

So why bother? Why bother writing? Doing? Living? Because there is a self deep inside me that seeks express the small meaning it does have, that wants to discover and become itself. It somehow puts aside the relative unimportance of it all and says, “I will become myself.” As surely as a new leaf forms on the plum tree outside my office—without regard for the fact that there will be thousands of other leaves on that one tree and on billions of other plum trees around the world —just as surely, I am forming myself. In the grand scheme of things, I mean about as much as one of those plum leaves.

Surprisingly, I find this perspective enlightening and refreshing—even though the place I have found for myself is not grand or exalted as my ego might desire. It allows me to forgive myself and others when we don’t change some part of the world as much as we wanted to. It allows me to be more patient with clients and friends. It allows me to appreciate the magnificent and unfathomable world around us from my small place in it. I cannot use this assumption to excuse myself from doing anything. The reality, is I can make a small difference and I should use that opportunity well. It is vital that I do it, even though I do not have many illusions about how important those small differences are in the great picture of the universe.