Strategic Direction for Entrepreneurs
A reality check on your business requires bravery and truth.
True North is a highly-professional, well-respected coaching and facilitation practice that has inspired, motivated and given direction to many entrepreneurs and other business professionals.
True North helps all entrepreneurially minded business-owners broaden the way they see the world, thereby enabling them to make more productive personal and professional choices. They and their organisations are then able to shape the future that they desire. Furthermore, business-owners often don’t have a safe space in which to brainstorm, debrief or talk through challenging issues. True North offers this to them.
Over the past seven years True North has facilitated programmes that range in scope from ‘what it means to be a trusted advisor’ to ‘how to have a candid conversation’. This process has brought powerful and sustainable results for clients.
Sometimes it takes a melting glacier to get our attention
In the short term it often does not suit us to take a hard look at our current reality. A case in point is global warming.
In 2007 a significant report, based on the work of 2,500 scientists in more than 130 countries, concluded that humans (greenhouse gases) have caused all or most of the current planetary warming. Are you aware that the U.S. is responsible for more greenhouse gas pollution than South America, Africa, the Middle East, Japan and Asia – all put together?
In 2007 Europe debated the appropriate responses to this information whilst many people in the United States debated whether climate change was actually happening. This stance was again evident at the 2009 International Scientific Congress on Climate Change, where the concern was raised that many people in the United States were still questioning whether climate change is really happening or not.
This is an example of how a distorted view of current reality can have serious consequences; but this is something that, to a greater or lesser extent, is evident in many businesses. Given the facts presented to them, many people chose pieces of information, be it wittingly or unwittingly to support their perception of their current reality.
It takes courage to examine one’s current reality, as the steps that are taken thereafter are not always easy. It becomes especially tricky when what we perceive is not always what is real. This is as a result of making assumptions and jumping to the wrong conclusions.
The Ladder of Inference below, developed by world renowned organisational psychologist Chris Argyris, is a model designed to question assumptions. This allows you to test your current reality and help you ascertain what are assumptions and what is factual.
Step 1: At the bottom end of the ladder (observable data and experience, we capture everything as a camera would) – it is totally objective. Within seconds we move into becoming subjective.
Step 2: As we move from being objective to being subjective, we start to filter and select specific pieces of information. This is generally not done consciously.
Step 3: Based on our experiences and beliefs of the world, we shape the event, giving some kind of meaning.
Step 4: We then draw conclusions from this imposed meaning. We have made assumptions and are building on these assumptions.
Step 5: We then adopt beliefs of the world around us. These beliefs influence how we view the world and thus how we engage with it, which leads to step 6.
Step 6: We take action based on those beliefs.
At one of our True North workshops we present a picture of an office to all the people in the room. Each delegate has a different view on who may work in the office, what their age and gender may be, as well as their interests. They have all been presented with the same information but they all jump to different conclusions.
If you’re making assumptions about your current reality and are jumping to the wrong conclusions, this could have a serious effect on your business.
The questions below will help you check if you have a distorted or realistic view of your current business reality:
- What assumptions did I make about my business today? Where was I on my ladder of inference?
- How grounded (based in evidence/data that would be observable to all) were the assumptions?
- How did I test my assumptions?
- What caused me to make these assumptions?
- If the assumptions were not true, what action will I take based on what is true?