How to Avoid Jumping to Conclusions

One of the critical skills separating good leaders from great leaders is avoiding jumping to conclusions when making fast decisions. It’s when leaders are faced with more difficult challenges that their thinking becomes vulnerable to brain patterns that can lead them astray. For instance, once Leaders think they understand a problem, it can be difficult to break out of that way of understanding the problem, even if their initial understanding is inaccurate.

According to Reldan Nadler, Psy.D’s, in his book ‘Leaders’ Playbook,” we have as many as 60,000 thoughts a day. Ninety-five percent of those thoughts are the same ones we had yesterday. The same thoughts keep recycling, and that is one reason why we use 5-10 percent of our brainpower. These same or similar thoughts form patterns or clusters of our beliefs. These become “mental models” or deeply ingrained assumptions, generalizations, or even pictures or images that influence how we understand the world and how we take action. 

In a fast business environment, leaders need to make sure that when making fast decisions, as well as accepting or challenging other people's conclusions, they need to be confident that their reasoning is firmly based on the true facts. The "Ladder of Inference" model, created by organizational psychologist Chris Argyris helps leaders to achieve this.

The Ladder of Inference is a mental model popularized by Peter Senge in his book, The Fifth Discipline. The ladder is made up of seven rungs or stages that outline the rapid process our minds go through to make conclusions and take action in a given situation. 

Consider the following example (Adapted from MindTools): 

The Sales Director, Emily, has just read the latest sales figures. Sales in Rick's territory are down again. He needs to be fired!

Let's look at her thought process using the Ladder of Inference:

Since Rick is new to sales, Emily believes that he can't possibly be as good as the "old-timers" who she has trained for years. So, when she reads the latest sales figures (available data), she immediately focuses on the data from Rick's territory (selected data). Sales are down on the previous months again (interpretation), and Emily assumes that the drop is entirely to do with Rick's performance (assumption). She decides that Rick hasn't been performing well (conclusion), so forms the opinion that he isn't up to the job (belief). She feels that firing Rick is her best option (action).

Now let's challenge the Sales Director's thinking using the Ladder of Inference:

To get back to facts and reality, we must challenge Emily's selection of data and her assumptions about Rick's performance.

Although the figures are down in Rick's territory, they have dropped less than in other areas. Rick is actually a great salesperson, but he and his colleagues have in fact been affected by new products being delayed, and by old products running out of stock.

Once the Sales Director changes her assumptions, she will see the need to focus on solving the production issues – the real problem at hand.

The ladder of inference is also good for unraveling conflicts and is an excellent team tool to enhance decision-making and communication. It is a universal emotional intelligence tool. 

If you are a leader who wants to improve decision-making, communications, and conflict management, contact us to learn more about “The Emotionally Effective Leader” Workshop.

About Joe

Joe Bacigalupo, MBA, MPEC, ACPEC is a Managing Partner and an Executive Advisor at AlliancesHub International, LLC. AlliancesHub offers Change Management and Strategy Consulting, Talent Optimization and Analytics, Leadership Development, and Executive/ Leadership Coaching services.     


Email: info@allianceshub.com, Phone: 469-287-2086, https://www.allianceshub.com


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