Today’s Sunday Story is all about checking our assumptions and avoid climbing our “Assumptive Ladders”. It’s a story about roommates not seeing eye to eye, and how a can of coke caused tens of thousands of dollars in damage in under 24 hours.
Here’s something we can all relate to: We are driving to work, minding our own business, maybe bopping along to the latest Taylor Swift tune on the radio on our way to work. But, we realize a moment too late that we’re going to miss our exit, so we do a quick shoulder check, flick on our blinkers, and since the way is clear you take the opportunity and manage to get your exit at the last minute. As the dulcet tones of Tay Tay fill your ears, you go on with your day, satisfied that you are a decent human being trying to do decent things in the world, right?
Then two weeks later, you are on your way to work when suddenly a person in the left lane flicks on their blinker and cuts across your lane - it wasn’t unsafe, per se, as there was space - but holy cow do you ever have feelings about how that person is choosing to drive. They are a menace! Cutting across traffic like that is dangerous! They should have been paying more attention and maybe they wouldn’t have to be so reckless! They shouldn’t even be on the road if they can’t drive safely! And what’s worse, no amount of T-Swift will calm you down or talk you off your high horse of judgement.
But wait…didn’t that person do the exact same thing as you did? Why was there such a variety of reactions to two similar situations?
It’s simple: Because as humans, we tend to judge others by their actions — what we can see them do — and we judge ourselves by our intentions — what we MEANT to do. This means that when it comes to our own behaviours, we tend to have a lot more context - we know what we were trying to do, and we know we don’t have ill intent towards anyone, so we give ourselves a pass. But when it comes to other people, we don’t have that context - and so we assume what their intentions are based on how we see them act.
We all do this, but being aware of it can help us short-circuit conflicts in a powerful way. Here’s a real world example, a true story that has been anonymized for sharing:
It’s college student housing, and roommate 1 (Let’s call him Steve) decides to move in. Steve is at first thrilled - the housing office didn’t tell him who his roommate was, and there’s no roommate here, so that must mean Steve will have the whole double room to himself! But before he can even imagine the parties he will have, Bill shows up. Bill was a late applicant so the housing office didn’t get to give Steve a heads up.
Bill notices that Steve doesn’t seem thrilled to see him, but he just hopes it’s first year jitters and goes on about his business. The Housing Advisor (Don, RA, etc.) shows up and facilitates a roommate agreement with Bill and Steve, just like they do with every other new person moving in that day. That agreement means Bill and Steve agree to no noise after 10:00 PM, not to use each other’s computers, and not to borrow each other’s stuff without asking.
That night, Bill settles into fall asleep at around 10:00 PM. At about 10:05 PM, Steve is thirsty and so he goes and grabs a can of coke from the fridge. He cracks it open with a loud “Kchhht” sound - and Bill thinks to himself “Hmm…awfully close to 10 PM to be doing that…why did he wait till after? And why was Steve so standoffish today? He must have waited until after 10 PM on purpose just to annoy me…he doesn’t want me here and must be trying to get rid of me. Well, two can play that game”
Bill just took a huge leap up his assumptive ladder - he’s assumed the intent of his roommate.
The next morning, Steve gets up and heads to the shower. Bill sees this as his chance to get even, so he opens up Steve’s laptop and starts playing music from it - a clear violation of the agreement from the day before. When Steve returns from the shower, he’s a bit annoyed that Bill used his computer without asking. Why would he do that, after they just agreed not to the day before? Bill must be trying to get rid of Steve! And now Steve has taken a huge leap up his assumptive ladder too!
Bill then goes to the shower, and while he’s there Steve decides he’s going to use Bill’s sweater. Bill leaves the shower just in time to see Steve leaving with his stuff, and now Bill is 100% certain that Steve is doing all this on purpose. Bill decides to wait until Steve gets home, and then excuses himself - but not before he picks up all his own stuff off the floor. He then takes a 60 gallon garbage can to the bathroom and fills it from the shower. He returns to his room, leans the water-filled garbage can against the door of his own room, with Steve inside. He then knocks….and when Steve opens the door, every gallon of water from the bucket floods the floor, ruining his books, soaking some clothes, and eventually flowing through the floor into the room below where it destroyed a couple of laptops and some more books. All told, this was thousands of dollars worth of damage.
And it all happened because someone made an assumption about a can of coke. Even before that assumption, someone made a different assumption about someone else based on how they saw them acting - Bill saw Steve being a bit standoffish, and rather than seek to understand, he built a narrative in his own mind that Steve was a bad roommate before they even got a chance to know each other. Steve then saw Bill reacting to that narrative, and made similar assumptions about Bill being a bad roommate.
They didn’t stay roommates, but the moral of this Sunday Story is simple: When you find yourself reacting to conflict (or see those you lead having a reaction to conflict) try to take a step back and re-assess the story you are telling yourself and where that story is coming from. Is this coming from something you know to be true? Or is this story full of information that you just THINK you know, but actually can’t be sure about? Answering that question can help make sure you are reacting to the real world, and not just what you’ve assumed to be real about it, and that can help solve a lot of conflicts before they escalate.
I hope this Sunday Story was useful to you as a leader and a human! Thank you for reading, and we’ll see you next Sunday.
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