“We thought you were handling it.”
It is a sentence that often arrives after a deadline has passed.
Nobody was trying to avoid the work. Two people simply left the same conversation with different understandings of what would happen next.
That is how a small assumption becomes a workplace problem.
September’s Workplace Wisdom series explored the principles that help explain how work behaves. This month, we are looking at the people doing that work and the everyday choices that shape how we work together.
Here is one place to start: At the end of a conversation, confirm what happens next, who owns it, and when you will check back.
It takes less time than discovering a week later that everyone was waiting for someone else.
What is one assumption your team could clarify today?
