Remember this expression? “Never ASSUME, because when you ASSUME, you make an ASS of U and ME,”  which is the creation of the late TV writer and filmmaker Jerry Belson.

Recently, I was the only ass in the group. And it took me a minute to realize it. Assumptions we hold can be buried so deep in our brain that we consider them our “self-evident truths.”

Here’s what happened and how you can avoid my missteps. As background, I’ve been working with a five-person leadership team at an independent consulting firm. They all wanted to be involved in every step of our project, including informal discussions and meetings.

Even though I remembered them telling me this – and I could repeat this request to others I was working with – I kept asking the leadership team if they wanted to assign a point person to work with me.  After hearing their third “no,” I finally got the message and started including them in all future steps.

“Why had I been so stubborn?” I kept asking myself. Upon reflection, I realized that I had assumed that these five leaders shared my mindset, since we all were experienced with independent consulting firms in the same industry. That is, I believed they had to have been influenced, as was I, by the late executive Quentin Smith, Jr., one of the founders of the Employee Benefits Research Institute (EBRI).

Quent also served as the CEO of TPF&C, the consulting firm I joined early in my career. (The firm later became Towers Perrin and has now evolved into Willis Towers Watson. And as I write this, it seems silly to hold this belief, but some experiences are so powerful that it feels as if they become hardwired into your mind.)

“Bottom-line Quent,” as he was known throughout the industry, was also the epitome of a strong command and control leader, popular at this time. Inside the firm, in addition to his result-driven orientation, he was direct, decisive, and disciplined.  Three of his dictates are still clearly etched into my memory:

1. Effort doesn’t count, only outcomes.
2. Employees share responsibility for learning and development provided by the firm. If you want to take advantage of our training, you’ve got to attend both Friday and Saturday.
3. Be as efficient as possible.

And even though I gladly gave up these practices decades ago, I still associate them with being a consultant. (And I’m thrilled that Quent was proven wrong about effort. When leaders acknowledge individuals’ efforts, the encouragement helps people stick with what they’re doing and make progress, which can lead to positive outcomes, even breakthrough results. (Check out this Gallup report about the low cost and high impact value of employee recognition.)

So how can you and I avoid getting tripped up by our assumptions? Try these three steps.

First, recognize what assumptions are and how they work. For example,  according to the Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries, an “assumption is a “thing that is accepted as true or as certain to happen, without proof.”

Well-designed assumptions can save time and preserve energy because they help us work faster with others, if everyone is operating with the same assumptions. However, If everyone is operating under different assumptions that they never clarify with each other, the project is much more likely to be rife with confusion and chaos.

Also these days with both external and internal environments and circumstances changing rapidly, problems will arise if you carelessly accept the assumptions you follow, rather than question them. (That’s what happened with me.)

Second, articulate the assumptions you’re using, especially if you’re working with a group, and then get agreement with each other. (This is another place where I slipped. I assumed that because we were working on an internal special project that was nonbillable to any of the firm’s clients, the leaders would be concerned about working as efficiently as possible.) But they weren’t and I didn’t ask.

Third, revisit your assumptions regularly and challenge yourself as to whether they are still appropriate. Most of the time, I do this; but in this situation, my mindset and past experiences tripped me up.

A fourth lesson learned from this experience…..Set learning goals for yourself rather than performance goals, which will put you in a better place. That’s because you won’t feel pressure to be efficient and effective all the time. Instead, you’ll approach everything more from a learning perspective. That would have helped me in my first time working with this particular leadership team. (If you want to know more about this, check out this article, The Effort Effect, from the Stanford Magazine about Carol Dweck and growth mindset.)

Meanwhile,  here’s to being self-aware about your mindset, assumptions, and everything else! And may you avoid making assumptions that “make an ass out of u and me!”