What is more scary than a monster?

This past week, a large part of the world celebrated Halloween. It is that spooky time of year when we dress up as ghosts, goblins, ghouls, zombies, or some other scary character. Horror movies are on TV and featured on streaming services.

However, with everything going on, I realized that we ignored the scariest and most harmful things to businesspeople. It is not a monster or a zombie. What we are talking about here are unidentified assumptions.

Unidentified assumptions cause more problems in business than we realize. They happen because we are not curious. Once we identify an assumption, we can confirm it with questions. The challenge is how do we recognize something we are unaware of. One way is to listen to yourself when you have an opportunity. Ask yourself questions or get someone else to do it for you. Then, listen to your answers. If you start by saying something like the following, you may rely on an unidentified assumption. Be careful!

• I think
• I feel
• I believe
• I suppose
• I’d imagine
• I guess
• I would say
• It seems to me like

Whenever you catch yourself saying or thinking something like the phrases on this list, please stop and ask questions about it. Once you realize them, assumptions are much less harmful. It’s those hidden assumptions that are scary and harmful. Ask questions to illuminate them and watch them vanish.