Keep challenging those Assumptions

I think this is my favourite life advice to people. It has worked well for me.

We have to make assumptions to deal with complexity. We try to make the best assumption we can to fit with the evidence, and to enable us to take some action, form some opinion or make some decision. Without assumptions, we would be lost. We could not even cross the road, for fear that every car would jump the lights.

So assumptions are good. But assumptions can be wrong. Over time we can gain additional evidence. Too often our assumptions become blind beliefs or prejudices. We have to force ourselves to challenge them all the time.

A good example came up on the lovely music courses I attended during July. On the first one, the poor conductor was trying to improve a huge scratch chorus of over two hundred people. She was excellent, clear, concise, relevant, and actionable in all she did. Yet somehow the same faults kept appearing, again and again. Why might this be?

When I thought about it, I realized it was probably to do with people failing to challenge their assumptions. Most of the people in the choir were good singers within our own communities, probably the leaders in our local choirs. That is why we thought we were good enough to go on a course. Some of us might even have been directors or conductors ourselves.

At home, our conductors make the same sort of observations that Karen Davis did, whether it might be about American R’s, or late entries, or long vowels. In our local choirs, we know this doesn’t apply to us. We are the leaders. We can point to any number of other singers demonstrating these faults. Occasionally the conductor might even approach us for a bit of sympathy, bemoaning the fellow singers.

The problem is that we took that assumption with us to Berkshire. When Karen asked for some improvement, we assumed she did not mean us. How could she, we are the leaders? The result was two hundred souls blithely ignoring almost everything she said. Improvement was slow indeed. We had failed to challenge our assumptions.

I notice that I do this myself in choirs. At the beginning, I sense every word the conductor utters is directed at me, that I am the one dragging down the sound. Then, too soon I often move to opposite mindset, that everything is really intended for others. It is lazy, insulting, and prevents development.

In these days of lobbyists, we have to challenge everything we hear and everything we are tempted to assume. I have become a bit obsessive about it recently, living in the land of the lobbyist and the sound bite. In the current mayoral contest in New York, the opinion polls seem to exactly correlate the name recognition of the candidates, which is pretty well correlated to how much money they spend. At least this held true until the latest allegations against Anthony Weiner showed that not quite all publicity is good publicity (though before that he was in the lead despite confessed failings). I wish I could discern some policies to help make a more informed decision, but so far all I have learned is that, strangely enough, all the candidates seem to favour more jobs and secure streets and opportunity for all. Who would have guessed it?

The most dangerous assumptions are those that become mantras, almost folklore. A couple of recent examples really shook me. A couple of months ago, my daughter was studying the history of the Berlin Wall and discovered a quote from Maggie Thatcher. She was vehemently opposed to German reunification, as she feared the dominance of Germany in Europe again, either for selfish reasons or from memories of World War two. Now, looking back only twenty-five years, that quote seems ludicrous. How could someone claiming to represent liberty possibly want to suppress reunification? Yet she did, and no doubt much of the British establishment supported her. Our assumptions about her brand and our parents’ prejudices prevented many of us from challenging such a disgraceful position.

Another example I read to today. Finally, Alan Turing, a war hero who did much to solve the Enigma code, has been pardoned. I did not even know he had been convicted. But apparently he was homosexual, and was hounded by the law, and eventually committed suicide.

We look at these examples, and we can rightly celebrate progress. The blogosphere and transparent news and global sources have helped a lot, though the lobbying curse has worked the other way. After celebrating, we must then be vigilant. What are today’s injustices perpetuated by lazy lack of challenging assumptions?

Some are obvious. It is not hard to see through the claims of the NSA that mass snooping is required to prevent terrorism. Some are a bit more engrained. What about America as the land of liberty? Recently, I was at a school career day and got chatting to a New York cop. I asked about what might be done about the massive per capita prison population in the US. The reply? We have to have so many in prison in order to defend our liberty. Think about it. And think about how close you are yourself to accepting this sort of argument.

In Britain, we are somehow brought up to believe in a British sense of fair play. I’m not sure where it originated, but in my experience, it is just rubbish. I find the British the most willing to cheat and bend rules. Germans, for one, are far more wedded to fair play, for good or ill.

So what might today’s lazy assumptions be? Work should be from college to somewhere in one’s 60’s, forty hours per week for a few companies? GDP is a good measure of economic success? There will always be corruption? The previous era was a golden age and things are getting worse? I suspect these and many other statements might look just as daft as Maggie’s twenty five years from now.

This is a fun game to play at macro level, but the real value lies with ourselves. What folklore about our family needs a good challenge? My sister recently did me the service of looking up some long lost relatives, and, sure enough, family folklore was not reliable.

Over the years, I have accidently learned some things about my own character, usually through unintended feedback (for example overhearing someone talking about me). I used to think I was a funny public speaker, for example. On the positive side, someone last week described me as jolly, whereas I have always thought of myself as rather somber. We all have skills, often we have more than we think, but we also all have blind spots too.

One good place to look for blind spots is in the areas where society is changing. Just like when we hear the choir director, we often assume that such messages are for others, that we have already graduated. Truly valuing diversity may be one example. I used to think I did, until I learned that I hadn’t been – luckily via a situation where I learned to value it more. How many of us can really proclaim we are no longer racist, ageist, sexist? You don’t have to be a UKIP supporter to have lessons to learn. If we stop challenging our own assumptions, we will fail to learn them.

How can we avoid the trap of lazy assumptions? Being aware of it is the first answer. Without becoming a conspiracy theorist, actively doubt things that others seem to take for granted. Be especially skeptical of so-called national characteristics or the sort of platitudes politicians love to promote. Reading widely is a great antidote. Try reading publications that challenge your own dominant logic, or blogs or articles by people from different cultures. Doubt all lobbyists and lobbyist-induced sound bites.

The other thing we can do is be on the lookout for quality feedback. I miss very little about having a regular office-based work life, but one loss is the opportunity for structured and unstructured feedback. Like many things in life, the ones who receive the best feedback are also the ones who learn to give it, so practice that. There is a time and place, and an art to giving feedback, so study it and develop the skill. Just starting with compliments can be good. The world seems sunnier when someone offers an authentic smile from compliments you give, so why not try to do that more often?