Challenge Assumptions

Challenging assumptions means questioning the everyday things you take for granted. "The best assumption to have is that any commonly held belief is wrong," says Ken Olson, CEO of DEC.

The natural thing to do is the thing you have always done. Every time you approach a problem you bring your accumulated experience, knowledge and training to bear on it. But this includes you accumulated assumptions and biases – conscious and unconscious. The more experienced and expert you are, the more likely you are to assume outcomes by extrapolating from the known facts and experiences to predict a result. This mental baggage can prevent you from accepting innovative ideas.

Sometimes the way you frame a problem contains an assumption that prevents you from solving it. In Middle Ages the definition of astronomy was the 'study of how the heavenly bodies move around the Earth', i.e. the Earth was considered to be the centre of universe which resulted in the chain of wrong explanations of various phenomena. "Similar ideas exist in most businesses – assumptions that underpin most strategies and decisions, and that are so fundamental that they are never challenged."³

Paradigm Crisis as a Catalyst of Outside-the-Box Thinking

Your concepts of business environment, organizational structures and management are based on paradigms. If your organizational structures and management systems are no longer able to perform as effectively as alternative ones based on entirely different paradigms you will at first experience a paradigm crisis.

Break Free of Routine

Falling into a routine can destroy your life.  Routine is so dangerous and so powerful that even the best of intentions can be knocked down for good because of it. Recognize if you are in a routine and break free. Sometimes it's a matter of an attribute we all seek in life – confidence. If you wish to change yourself and achieve more, you need courage and a strong belief in your ability to succeed.

Kaizen Mindset

• Think beyond common sense. Even if something is working, try to find the ways to make it work even better... More

 Case in Point  Caterpillar's Syndrome

A very unusual experiment was conducted by John Fabre, the French naturalist, consisting of processionary caterpillars, a type of caterpillar that blindly follows the one in front of it.⁵

This explains the name processionary caterpillar. The experiment consisted of several of these caterpillars, a flowerpot filled to the rim with dirt, and pine needles.

The caterpillars formed a complete circle around the rim of the flowerpot, with the first one touching the back of the last one. The pine needles, the food of the processionary caterpillar, were placed in the center of the circle.

The caterpillars began their procession around the flowerpot, one following the other in a circle. This went on hour after hour, day after day, for an entire week. In the end, every one of the caterpillars dropped dead of starvation.

The one thing that could have saved them was only six inches away, but without purposeful thought or action, the caterpillars continued with a habitual routine that eventually proved too much to endure.

This is happening to people, too.

 Case in Point  The Buddhist Approach to Life vs. Western Science

"In the Western psychology, there is an assumption that everything must be accounted for within this lifetime," says Dalai Lama of Tibet. "So, when you can't explain what is causing certain behaviors or problems, the tendency is to always attribute it to the unconscious. It's a bit like you've lost something and you decide that the object is in this room. And once you have decided this, then you've already fixed your parameters; you've precluded the possibility of its being outside the room or in another room. So you keep on searching and searching, but you are not finding it, yet you continue to assume that it is still hidden somewhere in the room!"

Jokes: A Car as Collateral

A Russian businessman walks into a Swiss bank in Geneva and asks for a $100 loan. He offers his luxury Mercedes car as collateral. The collateral is too good, and the bank manager approves the loan. A year later, the Russian comes back. He repays the loan and the 10% interest and is ready to collect his car. Finally, the puzzled bank manager dares to ask him: "Excuse me, sir, could  you tell me: did you really need that $100 so badly? In order to get the money, you left your luxury car with us for a whole year!" The Russian replied, "That's simple - just think outside the box:  where else in Geneva can I find such a great parking place for just $10 a year?"

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