By Jonas Odocha
In life some people must have gone through harrowing experiences as a consequence of the outcome of their assumptions. In reality we all do assume from time to time and one keeps wondering why the tendency to assume does persist despite some well known negative outcomes. There must be many factors accountable for such an attitude which may range from trust, insufficient information, mental laziness or outright desire to confuse a general situation. Whichever factor is at play usually attracts a risk element which in the long run leads to regrets, or in the common parlance, “had I known” consequence.
Making assumptions may involve individuals or groups of individuals, circumstances or situations, and may even revolve around expectations or outcomes. But at the end of the day when the “cause and effect” analysis is carried out, the lamentation is always: “why and how did I not think of this other line of action?” It is therefore advisable and important that we engage in well thought-out ideas or undertakings before committing ourselves one way or the other.
This advice reminds me of an Effective Communication Course organised in the US which I had attended as a young employee of an American Oil Company. The resource person continued to hammer on the dangers of assumption in communication because, as he did point out, there must be no ambiguity in passing information from point A to point B, that is from sender to receiver. When you as a sender assume, whatever, then the receiver might equally well assume. When information is disseminated on the basis of assumption, then that information has failed the test of effective communication. He therefore gave us his own definition of the word assume: “making an ASS of U and ME,” which truly conforms to its spelling, ASSUME!
Please permit to make an illustration with this true story. A kind hearted man of good standing in his community had attended a local meeting in his urban city of abode. At this meeting it was announced that one of their compatriots had received an urgent message over the sudden illness of his father in the village, and his attention was needed immediately. The discussion at the meeting revolved around the possibility of his travelling by air immediately to save his father’s life or incur a risky delay if he was to do the overnight travel by road from up northwest down to the southeast. Mr Kind-hearted quickly opted to provide the airfare to and from the east for his kinsman. The entire community members in attendance at the meeting applauded this impromptu kind gesture and wished their brother a safe fight later in the evening of same day.
On arrival at the airport it was discovered that the only available flight had only one seat available in the Business Class cabin, at a cost triple that of the conventional Economy Class [N16,000 vs N48,000 per leg of the flight]. The only available seat was promptly taken up by the man in distress as a sign of his good luck and the bill was picked up for Mr Kind-hearted by his driver who had accompanied this man in distress to the airport to effect payment as he was also in possession of the man’s ATM card.
All hell later broke loose when Mr Kind-hearted discovered that the ticket was a Business Class category and had cost N48,000 per trip whereas he himself had never flown anything outside the Economy Class. He began to fume that his kind gesture had been abused and exploited and vented his anger not only on the beneficiary of the ticket offer but also on his driver who made the payment through the ATM withdrawal.
[pro_ad_display_adzone id=”70560″]
[pro_ad_display_adzone id=”70560″]
You can quickly figure out some basic assumptions that were made by all the parties involved in this scenario and the consequences or negative outcomes of the assumptions.
First and foremost Mr Kind-hearted had assumed that the offer he had made would have been understood as an Economy Class Category ticket. Did he specify? Of course not! Mr Beneficiary on arrival at the airport was lucky to have the only seat available in the Business Class Category which he had no choice but to accept and purchase. Did he bother about the price disparity? No! He had assumed that the offer was open and whatever cost could be absorbed by the kind man. Mr Driver who was to effect payment did so in realisation that Oga had offered to assist his kinsman.
Did he call his boss to inform him of the amount the ticket had cost before going to withdraw the money? No! He had assumed that the amount in question was no problem for his boss since they were even lucky to have an available seat that evening.
In all this who finally bore the brunt of all the assumptions? Mr Kind-hearted of course because the unexpected huge financial deduction was made from his account and he never envisaged his kinsman would opt to fly Business Class whereas he himself had never opted for such luxury under any circumstance! This ugly situation would have been nipped in the bud if during his offer at the meeting he had told his kinsman he was ready to assist him with an Economy Class ticket. But he assumed that his kinsman would understand.
The lesson to learn is that occasionally assumptions do hurt and it is not easy to predict or appreciate the direction of the outcome at the initial stage of assumption. It therefore pays to be specific when you are communicating offers or instructions. Never you assume, or you will end up making an ASS of U and ME.