How To Question Assumed Truths At Work

If you’ve ever walked into a job thinking “this place is amazing” or “this place is doomed,” you already know how powerful a story can feel when we treat it like truth. When we hear “always” and “never,” we’re usually not hearing facts, we’re hearing a belief that hasn’t been tested yet. So we practice a better move: define the fuzzy words. What does “good” mean here? What would “better” look like in numbers, behavior, or customer impact?

Employees can assume leaders are either saints or idiots, while leaders can assume staff are either flawless or incapable. Neither view helps employee engagement, accountability, or trust. Organizations are a mix of strengths and blind spots, and most people are trying to make the best decision they can with limited time and imperfect information. That’s why judgment gets so loud after the fact. Hindsight makes mistakes look obvious, but in the moment they rarely are.

The solution is simple: ask for the contrary evidence. If you believe A, what facts could support Z? That one question reduces cognitive bias, opens a 360-degree view, and makes workplace communication more honest and useful. If you found this helpful, subscribe, share it with a teammate, and leave a quick review.

Transcript

Karman 0:30

Good morning, Tammy and Scott.

Scott 0:33

Good morning, Karman. Good afternoon, Karman. Why why are we afternooning, Scott? Oh, I you're so put together and and lovely this morning. I just figured it couldn't be morning.

Tammy 0:46

Oh, you are such a nice man. Hold on, wait, wait. April Fools. April Fools. April Fools. April Fools. Welcome to April.

Scott 0:58

It's almost morning.

Karman 1:03

Well, I was already with a bad dad joke, but I think you know, Scott's April Fool's joke is right spot on here.

Tammy 1:12

Took care of the bad dad joke. Yeah.

The Myths We Treat As Gospel

Karman 1:15

Just walked right into it. Yep. Yep. So it is April Fool's Day. So I thought today maybe not everything is always funny in work, although we hope to laugh every day. In fact, when my kids would come home from school, like our dinner time question should have been what went well, what didn't go well, what would you do differently? But instead, our dinner conversation was, what was funny today? That sounds like your family, Karman, actually. Yeah. So I'm I'm also thinking about those truths that we sometimes come to work with that we believe are truths and can't always see the other side of it, or we kind of walk right into it because we, you know, make some assumptions. And so my question for you today is what are some of the things that when you start working with an organization, like they kind of take as gospel and as assumed truth. And you have to kind of help them look at that a little deeper and and rethink it. Like we can't hold people accountable because then we won't be able to hire to replace them. Or what? What are what are some of the myths that you run into?

Scott 2:47

In my experience, every time they open their mouth, it is a myth.

Tammy 2:52

Oh, Scott Bergmeyer.

Karman 2:55

That's not fair. No, it's not fair. I mean we mean we do have clients listening to this, Scott.

Spotting Absolutes And Defining Good

Employees And Bosses On Extremes

Scott 3:04

Soon to be formal clients, apparently. Oh no, I I mean I'm trying to think of an example, and where I where where I keep thinking to is when people use absolutes, it will never work. It always is like this, right? And and saying those things. What I have found is so that's one kind of spidey sense thing that makes me think, uh, let's talk about this. Or if they use general words. So I would like this better than it was before. What does better mean? Hey, I think we're pretty darn good. What does good mean? Because usually it's not saying that they're bad, it's saying, what is your definition of good? And then they can say, like, oh, we've increased our sales 10% or whatever those things are. For me, the follow-up question to that is are you satisfied with that? Are you done? Are you done? Is this as good as you can be? And usually then we can have a conversation about what maybe might we want to go after.

Judgment Culture And Hindsight Bias

Tammy 4:09

You know, for me, Scott, and and Karman, this question is as you were asking it, I was looking at it from two perspectives. Okay. One perspective is the employees perspective. And employees oftentimes come to the table and say, This organization is gonna be awesome, right? And they come into it with these high expectations, like this is the best company ever. Okay. Or they come in and they're like, This companies like every every other company, they suck. All companies suck. I mean, I have to work, but um, you know, the fact of the matter is that this, you know, leaders here are stupid and uh they are only money hungry. They don't care about us, right? I think that there is kind of these two ends of the continuum where many employees come into a new company and they are thinking one or the other. And by the way, both of those are wrong. Okay. A company is not all wonderful, perfect, has it all figured out. Every company is in the process of, if they're good, getting better, which means there are places that they aren't good. There are places that they've made mistakes, there are places that they are not doing things well. They have leaders who are not great leaders yet. They might be great leaders, but they're not there yet. So, I mean, a company is never perfect. They're never, they've never arrived. They have all sorts of issues. Okay. Company is also never all bad. All right. And I have been in many organizations where I listen to employees talk about their leaders like they're the worst human beings that have ever walked on this planet. And you're like, then why are you here? If you think your bosses are terrible human beings who don't know what they're doing, they're idiots, think of that word. Okay. They're an idiot. How could they have made that decision? Right? If you really think that your boss is an idiot, or if you think your boss is making all their decisions to put money in your in their own pockets and to screw you, why would you ever work there, even a day? Okay. There are jobs out there. So for me, when I think about an employee, these are the two continuums that I oftentimes see. And I think those are both wrong, right? Companies are good and bad. Bosses are good and bad. And every organization that I know traditionally has really decent leaders, not all of them, but really they're trying to do their best and they're going for an outcome that they are hoping will help the organization move forward. They're not purposely screwing up, right? So I think about from the employee standpoint. But we also have bosses who also have that same thing. All employees are stupid. Okay. Don't ask the employees, right? I had a a coworker, actually a partner one time, and her phrase was the masses are asses. Okay. You know, and and when you really think about that for just a minute, if you think your staff is not brilliant, if you think your staff is not capable, then you're not utilizing your staff in the right way, right? And you're the one who hired them. So who's the idiot then? Right. So I look at that in that space. So I have one end of continuum where I have bosses who really don't value the employees that they have. I also have others who they hire people and they're like, yeah, this person is brilliant. They're going to be fabulous. And again, that employee is human and they make mistakes and then they're disappointed. So I think that for me, that kind of message is don't go to either end of the continuum. Doesn't matter. Employee, employer, don't look at either end of the continuum. You're looking at people, you're looking at organizations. They're in the middle. And our job is not to judge whether they're good or bad. Our job is to help them make them better. That's what I'm there for as a boss, as an employee, is to help this organization be more tomorrow than it is today. And when you think about that, you can be part of that process of making that organization better, or you can be part of the process of tearing it down. And so which side of that are you going to play? Are you going to point out everything that's wrong? Or are you going to help this organization help your peer, help your coworker be better in that spot? And what are you doing to be better every single day? And yeah, to me, that's the big myth that there's perfection or it sucks. It's neither one. Get on the train and make it better, right? That's that's what we're here for to grow in that space.

Scott 8:49

It's also a reflection of I'm gonna use a generalization. As society, we're very judgmental, right? We see and we say, oh, that's that's not fair, or that's not right, or and we just you watch the news, you watch the different clips, you watch the tiki-talkie and all, you know, all the social medias, and there is this general, this is terrible, versus let's look at it from let's look at it from a 360-degree view. From this viewpoint, it might be terrible. From that viewpoint, it might be good. From this viewpoint, oh, that was the right decision based on the data and information they had. That oh, it would have been better had they looked at this other information that they had access to, but they didn't know they had access to. And I think too often we're looking at it from like my personal perspective versus let's look at it kind of in that 360-degree view, and then we become judgmental jerks.

Tammy 9:45

Well, and Scott, we oftentimes also have the benefit of hindsight. So, you know, like I'm judging you afterwards, not in the process of. And if any of us had been in the middle of that, there's a good chance that we would have made the same quote unquote mistake, right? But it becomes obvious at the end that it was a mistake. Well, that's really darn like you were so brilliant that you caught it afterwards, right? And that's the other thing that drives me a little crazy, is that sometimes in the middle of it, you just don't see it in reflection, which is why we ask the questions what worked, what didn't work, what are we going to do better next time. In reflection, we can always be better. In the middle of it, most of us can't be, right? Because we just we're not seeing it right then, right? In that particular moment.

Scott 10:41

Tammy, I think many times we choose to not see it.

Tammy 10:46

I'm not disagreeing with you, right?

Scott 10:50

Right. And I'm not saying, oh, these are all bad or poor decisions. It's just I'm thinking I showed you all the new summit pad that last year in my head, I thought, oh, we should do this. But the person who I had hired to do that work said, Oh, you don't need it. And in my mind, they're an expert. I didn't go research, I didn't go look it up, I didn't do anything else. I just blindly trusted, which was wrong. And then when your pool started to fall apart, you're like when when things started to sink and I went out and looked, everything online says, No, you absolutely need to do it a certain way. And even if you do it this certain way, every two or three years you're going to have to redo it. Unless you have a cement pad. Well, had I taken 10 minutes to go do a little bit of research, I could have saved a lot of money. Yeah. And so I think there's sometimes we're just trying to go so fast, we don't slow down and think.

Tammy 11:51

And that spot, Scott, and I've been in that spot where my, you use the word spidey sense all the time. Your my spidey sense says that's not right. And then I override it because I have this person in front of me and they're telling me one thing, even though my spidey sense is saying another, and I don't want to be seen as oppositional or whatever it is. And I don't have to be the smartest person in the room. So maybe I should listen to other people, right? And I don't listen to my spidey sense, and then I find out later that my spidey sense was right, and then I just want to go, I knew that, but I didn't trust myself enough to go through that in that space. So I think that's also an interesting part of your, you know, pool pad story in that spot, right?

Scott 12:39

For me, it's reinforcing two things. I number one, I need to trust my gut. Number two, I need to spend just a little bit of time researching.

Tammy 12:46

Yeah. A little bit of the analysis time.

Scott 12:49

Just a little bit, right? And just like a quick Google search or watch a couple YouTube videos and just to see, am I thinking about this correctly? And sometimes I am, and sometimes I'm not, and I'm okay with that.

Slow Down And Think Past Bias

Tammy 13:01

Right. And you know, that space again, isn't it interesting? Lots of reasons why, like the information is there, and we choose to not pay attention in that space. And that gets us in trouble. And that comes back to that whole thinking thing. We're running, running Rodney's, running fast, jumping Julia, jumping to conclusions. I'm gonna trust this expert, right? Not thinking about they have their own reasoning, right? Of why they may or may not be doing this thing the right way. You know, it's it's those things that we oftentimes follow, those cognitive biases that are in our in our heads instead of just taking a beat in that spot. And maybe that's part of the reason why we have these mistruths at work is that we're a little bit lazy and don't take the time to just think it through, thinking, well, that takes too much time instead of recognizing sometimes thinking it through can be a one-minute thing. I mean, it doesn't have to be a one-hour thing, it doesn't have to be a one-week thing, it doesn't have to be one month thing. Sometimes it is thinking it through is just like snap your fingers, and we are absolutely there. I think, I think we have excuses for our ourselves for not thinking. And that's the time period that maybe we should slap ourselves on top of the head and say, I'm responsible.

Scott 14:32

And if you need someone to slap yourself on top of the head, like call me, text me, email me, I will happily come and do that for you.

Tammy 14:40

Did your dad smack the back of your head when you were a kid? Is that like is that part of your family's methodology?

Scott 14:46

No, we were spanked.

Tammy 14:48

That's well, that maybe that's where your head is.

Scott 14:50

Well, I don't I don't ever remember us being hit in the head. Belt across the bare ass, I remember.

Use Contrary Evidence To Expand View

Tammy 14:55

So I will tell you, Michael's dad did do that thing that you sometimes see, like, you know, hey, knucklehead, you know, and and would smack the back of your head. Big fly. That was never my family's thing. You know, my family never ever had us, you know, kind of looked at us like we weren't thinking people. And yet I do think that there are times when we don't think when we're young, but I'm telling you, I'm I'm living in a 55 and older community right now. There's a lot of 80-year-olds here that are not thinking. So this is not an age thing. This is actually uh a spot where I think we get lazy and we stop taking the time to consider something other than our first option, right? And I do think that oftentimes we will accept the first thing that comes to our head instead of just taking a beat and saying, what's the second third thing? What's the third thing? What's the fourth thing? Because that allows us to now have some oh options and alternatives and then look at those and see where that takes us. And that helps us look at those things that we take as truths and question them, because that's actually what we should be doing. When something comes into our head as a truth, we should simply question it and say, is that accurate? And I use this phrase, what's the contrary evidence? If I believe A, what is the evidence that the answer is Z? Right. And if you take the time to explore the contrary evidence, then that allows you to question your first assumptions, right? And I think that's a a really beneficial tool. Okay, if I believe this, what would someone on the opposing side believe? Why would they believe it? What's their facts that make them believe that? Because they're not stupid. They just see it differently. And that allows you to start expanding your perspective.