When Susan and I work with our partners and clients we are usually collecting data from all sorts of sources from the moment we make contact, including when we step through the front door of an organisation for the first time. We know how important these first stages are because we are seeing things with fresh eyes and we can take a little time to collect information before we start to interpret what we are experiencing. As things become more familiar it is harder to look at things quite so dispassionately and we have to be careful to avoid leaping to conclusions too quickly.
If the recent weeks have taught us anything it is that we need to be mindful of the assumptions we make based on our past experiences. These often serve us well, which is why they can become ingrained to the point that they appear intuitive or instinctive. When the world changes so radically and fast, as it just has for most of us, it pays to step back and reassess the conclusions we might make and the actions we could take. This is perhaps why it feels so disconcerting at the moment, everything we thought we knew has been deeply challenged by this experience.
One approach we find particularly useful in managing this process is the ‘Ladder of Inference,’ (Argyris, 1982, Senge et al., 1994) you may have come across it before, but we thought it was worth revisiting given current events.
As most of us are now mainly meeting via video link it is not always easy to pick on some of the cues we would have if we were meeting physically, this makes it easier to jump to conclusions about what is going for someone else without always checking it out. I have noticed a couple of times people looking distracted at the other end and started to wonder if I am being boring or not communicating very well, only to find they are worried about a family member or are trying to manoeuvre an interested cat away from the keyboard surreptitiously !
The Ladder of Inference describes the process we use to reach a conclusion or decide on a course of action. Starting at the bottom of the ladder, ideally you progress your thinking rung by rung:
- Firstly, we collect data from observation
- We then select data based on frame of reference and previous experience
- This data is interpreted and given meaning
- Assumptions are made about the meaning we ascribe
- We draw conclusions based on our prior beliefs
- This reinforces or amends our beliefs
- We then take action based on our conclusions and beliefs
I find the notion of the ladder particularly helpful because it reminds me to be careful of jumping rungs without checking my understanding first. One of the things Susan, Anna, Lisa and I did when we started working on the Arts Council’s Capital Programme Evaluation was to write down all the assumptions we had, positive, negative or indifferent about arts and cultural organisation capital projects. It was a great way of us getting to know each other’s experiences and viewpoints, and also served to raise our awareness about some of the assumptions we were carrying and that we should be very mindful of how they might impact the data we were collecting. We had to firmly stay on the bottom rungs for as long as possible.
The ladder also reminds us of confirmation bias and the Law of the Instrument describes this beautifully.
I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. (Maslow, 1966)
In other words there is a danger that our beliefs and assumptions can be limiting and drive us to see the world in a particular way, we may still work our way up the ladder but the data we have collected has already confirmed the conclusions we will make before we get there. If we find a team or board member difficult it is likely that the behaviours we notice most continue to support that view.
I try and identify which rung of the ladder I’m on at certain point and ask myself:
- Have I only collected data that confirms my prior beliefs or assumptions?
- Am I drawing the right conclusion?
- Why did I assume this?
- Have I come across something like this before, and if so how is it influencing my interpretation?
- Is my conclusion based on data?
- Why do I think this is the right thing to do?
- Can I do this a different way?
Understanding the views of others and thinking about how we express our own views can be a useful next step once you have explored your thinking up and down the ladder. The ‘Advocacy and Inquiry’ tool is designed to support taking action and supporting shared learning. Advocacy is about stating your own views whereas Inquiry is about exploring and questioning.
- Explaining: this is the high advocacy and low inquiry approach. It is useful for giving information and is one-way. It is good for sharing your point of view but doesn’t lead to surfacing different perspectives. The shadow side of explaining is imposing where a single viewpoint is forced on others
- Mutual learning: when you are engaged in high advocacy and inquiry you are stating your own views and being open to questions about them, you are also asking others to state their views and are genuinely inquiring about them. The shadow side of mutual learning is over engaging which could lead to ‘analysis paralysis,’ and not taking action because you keep exploring each other’s views
- Observing: this is another one-way communication approach based on low advocacy and low inquiry. In observing mode, you are sitting back and probably not contributing overtly. This is a helpful mode to build your understanding but means others will not know your views. The shadow side is withdrawing from the discussion and keeping in safe territory
- Interviewing: This is the high inquiry mode where you are focused on gaining information from others. Taken to its extreme it can feel like someone is being interrogated and they may think you have a hidden agenda and your are trying to steer them towards the ‘right’ view
Used together the Ladder of Inference and the Advocacy/Inquiry model can be really powerful for understanding how you are drawing conclusions about a particular context and how best to communicate them. Be mindful when you are skipping rungs on the ladder and notice if you have a communication preference. Are you someone who is good at advocating your own views or are you genuinely interested in the perspectives of others?
Here’s a quick Inquiry/Advocacy video that talks through the different quadrants.
Susan & Dawn
References
ARGYRIS, C. 1982. The executive mind and double-loop learning. Organizational dynamics, 11, 5-22.
SENGE, P. 1990. The Fifth Discipline: The Arts and Practice of the Learning Organization, New York, Doubleday.
SENGE, P., KLEINER, A., ROBERTS, C., ROSS, R. & SMITH, B. 1994. The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook: Strategies and Tools for Building a Learning Organization, London, Nicholas Brealey Publishing.