Rethinking Opinions and Assumptions

Challenging your own opinions and assumptions is never easy, but you don’t have a choice—not if you expect to remain adaptive, resilient, flexible, and agile in today’s changing, often chaotic, world. Most company failures stem from an inability to look at the world differently or to see new opportunities and threats early. Questioning your assumptions and opinions daily is essential, even when it makes you look uncertain. Being uncertain and yet responsive to change is better than being certain and yet unresponsive to change. Consider Microsoft’s approach to opinions and assumptions.

Microsoft’s “nothing is impossible” attitude fuels a constant challenging of assumptions and opinions on a daily basis. Think about the following statement from former Chairman Bill Gates: “Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.” You can’t embrace or promote such a Cultural Belief without constantly creating experiences that allow you and those around you to question what you think, what you feel, and what you do. Microsoft’s basic tenets require the questioning of all assumptions and opinions, no matter where they reside. For example, one of their tenets or Cultural Beliefs is “Enabling people to do new things,” which encourages “broadening choices for customers by identifying new areas of business, incubating new products, integrating new customer scenarios into existing businesses, exploring acquisition of key talent and experience, and integrating more deeply with new and existing partners.” When such experiences are created, they shape and reinforce the belief that people should be enabled to do new things, which drives Microsoft’s passion for using technology to “learn faster, achieve more, simplify life, and have fun.” All of it depends on never assuming the same old positions and points of view or holding on to the same old opinions and assumptions.

What is the best thing that ever happened to you because you challenged your opinions and assumptions? What is the worse thing that ever happened to you because you failed to challenge your opinions and assumptions? To learn more about taking greater accountability for challenging assumptions and opinions in your organization as well as creating the right experiences to drive the right beliefs, actions, and results, we invite you to join the Accountability Community at www.partnersinleadership.com, where you can review actual client case studies.

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