From time to time in a session, a client will tell me a fully fleshed-out story, then stop mid-sentence, as if saying it out loud to me suddenly makes them realize that what they have been describing with total confidence may, in fact, be a story they’ve made up. It happened twice last week.
Their interpretation isn’t a lie... It’s a story. And more often than not, it’s a highly convincing one.
But at best, it is a hypothesis.
We all do it. If you look back at your week, you can probably find some situations that have led you to construct a story or two. Perhaps someone on your team seems unusually quiet this week; or you haven’t received a reply to the email that was important to you; or your boss replies to your proposal with a two-word “let’s discuss”.
By Friday, you have a full explanation. You know exactly what they’re thinking and planning, and how this will impact you. You’ve probably also sorted out some motives and maybe even a timeline for how things will play out from here. This feels like insight.
But you haven’t checked a single piece of it. Instead, you’ve been constructing a story in your head.
We are meaning-making creatures by design, and our brains absolutely hate a gap. If we’ve got a couple of observations and no explanation for how they relate to each other, we’ll weave a narrative around those elements so that they “make sense” to us before we even realize we’ve done it.
There are any number of situations that can throw us into internal storytelling, but some fairly common ones I’ve seen include:
The Quiet Team Member: What are they planning? When you notice a shift in someone’s behavior and your mind jumps to a hidden agenda, an ulterior motive, or a plan you’re not yet privy to.
The Unanswered Email: Why are they doing this? This is where silence or a slow response starts to feel like an active form of disrespect, and leaves us one click away from writing someone off.
The Two-Word Reply: Where do I stand? When you get a one-liner from your boss inviting you to a meeting with no context after you’ve sent on your ideas. It’s the “let’s discuss” that leaves you bracing for an icky conversation that may never come.
Our instincts may well be right. The danger isn’t in actually having a hypothesis. It is in acting on it as a fact before we really have the data to confirm it.
Ladder of Inference
Creating a story usually comes out of a few ingredients. We usually find ourselves dealing with ambiguity. Our senses are piqued because something feels out of the ordinary or is different from what we would typically expect. This then leads us to start an interpretative sequence that ultimately relies on our own beliefs and perceptions… and that is where the train can go off the tracks.
Chris Argyris came up with a model he called The Ladder of Inference (which was popularized in Senge’s book - The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook), which conceptualized how our assumptions often quietly drive our decision to act, and how quickly that can happen.
The 7 steps briefly described are:
Observe Reality - We take in the facts of the situation.
Select Data - We start to focus only on what feels relevant to us. We can’t take in everything, so we focus on parts. This is where bias starts to creep in.
Add Context - Once we’ve selected our focus points, we start to add context. This is where we begin to filter through our own beliefs and experience.
Make Assumptions - We start to form assumptions. These are based on a mix of our beliefs and the facts we selected.
Draw Conclusions - Based on the climb through the previous steps, we start to interpret, through our perception, what the situation means, which begins to shape how we should act.
Adopt Beliefs - We now formalize these conclusions into beliefs. These beliefs then shape which data we notice in future interactions, which feeds back into the second step in the future. This is termed the “reflexive loop” - where our beliefs begin to increasingly color our judgment.
Take Action - This is where we move to start acting in ways that are based on what we believe and have concluded by climbing the rungs of the Ladder of Inference. But our actions are primarily driven by assumptions and stories, not facts.
(Based on the description offered by Asana here)
Watching the Climb, Rung by Rung
We’ve all been on the receiving end of an unanswered email, and the deafening silence it can create. Running this example through the Ladder of Inference, we can see how easily it happens:
Observed reality - The email hasn’t been answered.
Selected data - You’ve noticed it has been a week, and that this colleague is replying to other people, so it is just your email that isn’t being responded to.
Added context - You remember they pushed back on something you decided last month.
Assumption - So now you assume they’re deprioritizing you because of their feelings toward you.
Conclusion - Leading you to conclude that they don’t respect you.
Action - As a result, you send off a curt follow-up email outlining your frustration.
We climb from observation to action in a matter of moments, so quickly that most of the time we never even think to check our reasoning or slow down our response.
Then a reflexive loop takes hold, and the next time this colleague is slow to reply, we see it as proof that they are tardy, and our beliefs become even more deeply ingrained.
When it comes to stories about other people and their actions, motives, and intentions, if we go back down the ladder, there is room to learn more. What we often skip is their side of the story. Our jumps in reasoning and moving quickly to action are where things go astray.
The risk comes from climbing the ladder too quickly and basing our actions on assumptions. The fix is to slow down enough to check our blind spots on the way up, and revisit our thinking.
Making the Climb Back Down
This is the practice. While we might scurry up the ladder, with our meaning-making minds creating a full narrative, we can walk ourselves back if we slow down and re-engage with the steps with clearer eyes. The questions leaders can ask themselves:
What do I actually know? This is about returning to the bottom rung and separating the facts from the story.
What else could explain this? To open up our minds, we need to challenge our assumptions. What alternative explanation might exist?
What is one action that will get me real data? The only way to ensure that we’re not leading from stories or assumptions is to seek to understand. This could be a two-line conversation or a direct question to try and better understand the other person’s perspective and actions more deeply.
Hold Your Stories Loosely
The moment a client stops mid-sentence is one of my favorites in a session. Not because they have their story wrong, but because they’re noticing.
We will all make stories and keep scurrying up our own ladders of inference. We’re human, and it is how we make sense of the world. The skill comes from recognizing where we are on the ladder, and being willing to step down a few rungs before we act.
And if our story turns out to be true? Holding it loosely means you’re prepared, but you won’t do any damage while you wait to find out. So the next time you notice that you’re a long way through forming a full explanation, pause and ask yourself: how high have I climbed?
Hi, I’m Kate Snowise - an executive coach, leadership advisor, and speaker. I’m a trained I/O psychologist, bringing together business and psychology in this Substack, Leadership Lately. I write practical thoughts for leaders who want to lead better on a real-life Tuesday, not a theoretical one. I live in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, with my husband, two boys, and a pack of pups I adore. You can find out more about me and my work at katesnowise.com.