The Danger of Jumping to Conclusions

Jumping to conclusions is a fundamental communication error, driven by a simple asymmetry: our brains think much faster than people talk.

This speed gap is fertile ground for assumptions that can have disastrous consequences.

Our brains process information faster than people talk.

The root of the problem is a speed gap. The average speaker speaks at a rate of about 160 words per minute.

However, our brains have the amazing ability to process information at three times the rate of about 500 words per minute.

This mismatch means that, while listening to someone, our mind has an enormous amount of "free time" or unused processing capacity.

It is this gap between the speed of speech and the speed of thought that puts us at risk of tuning out.

How this speed leads us to assume, anticipate and draw the wrong conclusions.

With all that extra mental capacity, it's incredibly easy to stop paying attention to the speaker and start thinking about something else.

Our mind, in its drive to be efficient, uses this time to assume what the speaker is going to say, anticipate their conclusion and formulate a response before the message is complete.

The result is a dangerous disengagement: the listener gets ahead of himself and gets sidetracked by his own train of thought, ending up in a completely different place than the speaker. At that point, communication has broken down.

The case of "Gracie."

One case perfectly illustrates this danger. An employee named Gracie was in her regular weekly meeting with a colleague to discuss a presentation.

During the conversation, her colleague mentioned some "urgent paperwork."

Since the context of the meeting was the presentation, Gracie automatically assumed that the paperwork was related to that topic and did not give it due weight.

The reality was that the rush paperwork was to close a multi-million dollar deal with another company.

Because of her assumption, the deadline passed, the deal was lost and the company suffered a significant financial loss, all because of a hasty conclusion born of inattentive listening.

The importance of listening to the end before making a judgment.

The lesson from this type of error is clear and fundamental to effective communication.

It is of utmost importance to discipline yourself to listen to everything the speaker has to say before drawing a conclusion or formulating a judgment.

This requires a conscious effort to resist the temptation to assume that you already know what the other person is going to say.

By forcing ourselves to remain present and att