Leveraging Leadership

Beyond Predictions: How Real Outcomes Shape Effective Leadership

• Emily Sander • Season 1 • Episode 164

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Emily Sander discusses how we often let assumptions and predictions about future meetings or situations affect us. She shares examples like a boss announcing role changes and budget approval meetings to highlight the gap between our internal stories and reality. By reflecting on these differences, we can build evidence showing that negative assumptions rarely unfold as imagined and train our brains to expect a more balanced or positive outcome.


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Who Am I?

If we haven’t yet before - Hi👋 I’m Emily, Chief of Staff turned Executive Leadership Coach. After a thrilling ride up the corporate ladder, I’m focusing on what I love - working with people to realize their professional and personal goals. Through my videos here on this channel, books, podcast guest spots, and newsletter, I share new ideas and practical and tactical tools to help you be more productive and build the career and life you want. 

 

Time Stamps:

00:59 The Importance of Comparing Assumptions with Reality
01:14 Example 1: New Role Announcement
03:44 Example 2: Budget Approval Request
07:01 The Exercise: Testing Your Assumptions

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Have you ever walked into a meeting convinced it was going to be a disaster, and then have it go completely differently? Let's talk about testing our assumptions. we all have assumptions, we all make assumptions, we all make predictions, and we have projections about future events, and we all tell stories in our head about what's about to happen. Very natural thing, like literally like it's human nature, it's built into our brain and there's lots of good things about us trying to predict what's gonna happen. It saves us a lot of time, it saves us a lot of danger, et cetera, et cetera. But there is also a place for. Noting our assumptions about an upcoming meeting or about an upcoming interaction, and then comparing that with reality and what really happens after the fact. And sometimes you get two wildly different stories. couple examples here. Let's say that, um, you're about to go into this meeting and your boss is gonna announce that you are taking on a new role. You're, you're, your, the, the scope of your role is changing, and you're now going to be consolidating three office locations into one regional area. and you're like, oh, oh, expletive. Like this person's gonna hate that. These people are gonna blow up. They're gonna be like, who the heck is this person? I don't know this person. If anyone's gonna take over that region, it should be me. So note the story you're telling yourself about what's gonna happen in this meeting. And then you go in the meeting and you're like, okay, like here we go. Boss is gonna make the announcement. Makes the announcement. What actually happens in reality. What probably happens in reality is one person is like, okay, met, and they're continuing like to Slack people, like as they're in the meeting and they're like totally distracted, they don't even care. They're like, I hear that I don't really care. Doesn't affect me. Okay. One person is like, I don't know, mildly confused, and they're like, wait, wait, what? We're consolidating the region. Okay. Why are we doing that? Oh, okay. For that reason. And she's gonna be in charge of that. Okay. Got it. Okay, sure. Maybe one person is like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Like wait a minute, like this is brand new information. I'm in charge of that third office you're talking about, how is this gonna work? And they have follow-up questions and then what exactly is your role gonna be? Like, how are we gonna do that? And it's explain like your boss and you explain like, Hey, this is a brand new concept. Here's our thoughts on it. The very next thing that's gonna happen is I'm gonna be meeting with the heads of those offices to talk about some of this stuff one-on-one, and then we're gonna talk about it together, all the heads of the offices. And then I'm gonna go on site and talk with you and your management team, on this initiative. And it's like, okay, they might not like it'cause it's. Uncertainty, right? And there's like unknown and it's like, uh, new kind of power dynamic and power structure. Uh, also need the context of like why we're doing this and how I fit into that. But it sounds like there's gonna be subsequent meetings and I'm gonna be able to not only get information in those meetings, but also give my input and have dialogue about how this is gonna roll out. And I have control over how this is gonna be rolled out to my team. Okay? So like, maybe not. Rousing endorsement right off the bat, but you know, I have questions and looking forward to talking to you in the subsequent meetings and kind of with that tone, but it's not a big blow up. The point is, it's important to know what actually happened in reality because it's much different than the story in your head going in. Let's do a second example really quick. Um, let's say that I just had a, a person I was talking to say, Emily, I'm going into this meeting. I'm gonna ask for this budget approval, and I know it's gonna get shot down and I know people are gonna hate me for asking, and they're gonna be like, how in the world could you be asking this? We've been talking to people about budget cuts. We've been asking people how to save money and be more cost efficient, and you're coming to me with this and they're like, the CFO's gonna hate me. My, my direct boss is in there. My boss's boss is in this meeting. Um, and I'm gonna go in here and do this, and it's gonna be, it's gonna make me look bad. And they're gonna think that, um, I'm irresponsible and I'm being greedy for my team. That is the story going in. That is the assumption line. That's the assumption. That's the storyline. In reality, what happened in this meeting is the CFO who was a little frustrated with other team members about requests being made because they were frivolous requests and they were like, it was like, look, we're in this financial position. I. This has been shared with the leadership team. You know, we're in this financial position yet you're asking for these, basically nice to have things where this person was asking for like a very, um, it was a new idea and it was a new initiative, but it was to try to be creative and solve a problem they were having. And so the CFO had some questions about it, but was like, thank you. For bringing this to me, this is the best I've idea I've seen around this. And so the person I was speaking to got this like feedback and compliment. There were follow-up meetings about, Hey, we wanna consider this. What if we did it like this? Are there contingency plans for X, Y, and Z? And so there were follow-up questions and follow-up meetings, but it was like, thank you for finally someone. Trying to be creative about this. Thinking outside the box and being thoughtful about their ask. It wasn't like we would like, an exorbitant amount of money for this thing that we're, that we're gonna try. It is unproven. It was, you know, here's my idea. Here's what I vetted with the teams. Here's why I think it will work. Here's how I think it will work, and here's the initial investment that I'm asking for. If there's a proof of concept with this, then I'm gonna come back and ask for another installment of a cash infusion in this area. So. it was thought out, and it was very different than the previous asks the CFO was getting. And the entire leadership team saw this person's thought process and it actually made them think better of this person. So that was the actual story. Okay, so in all of this, in all of these examples, the important part is to actually compare your prediction going in and then what actually happens afterward and see how different those are. I. Or how similar they are, but more, most likely they're gonna be pretty different. So think through and then just take a few seconds to say, okay, here's like, I know this is gonna happen in this meeting. And think through that. Say it out loud or write it down. And then afterward. Take some take, just take a few seconds to like mentally reflect and clock okay, what actually happened there? And you can think through that. You can say it out loud or you can write it down. Writing it down is cool because you can literally look at it like right next to each other in black and white. And sometimes it's laughable. Sometimes it's like O mg. Okay? So I am not a good storyteller. I'm not a good predictor of the future in this one area, so I need to remember that. And if you do this exercise. Over and over and over again, over a week, a month, a quarter. I bet you, I bet you if you do this, you are going to build up a huge body of evidence saying these negative things never happen or happen so minimally that it's, it's barely a data point on a graph. Or it happens so differently than I predicted. These, these predictions aren't aren't helpful, they're not accurate, and they're not helpful, uh, for me to go through. And in that process, if you really spend time highlighting the fact that this went better than I thought, or this went differently, or here's how this positive outcome transpired. If you register that in your brain over and over and over again, Your mental model will start to change over time. So you'll just skip the part where you get anxious about this upcoming meeting. Maybe it's, maybe it, uh, is less severe at first, and then maybe it's just like, okay, I'm anxious and then positive things happen, or I'm anxious and even if someone gets angry, I can handle myself. So try this for yourself. I would highly encourage you, I have been in this situation over and over where I am stressing the freak out about something and I literally lose sleep over it. And I talk to people about it and I spin myself up about it and then it's a big fat nothing burger. I. I'm like, oh, okay. Well, I just spent hours or possibly days of my life, uh, in a heightened state of like, ha ha, ha, adrenaline, who's gonna fight? Who's gonna fight? All this stuff? And it was for nothing. So that's nice. Um, and oftentimes it was just different than what I thought. Oh, like, okay, I thought the agenda was gonna be this, and actually this thing came up, which made my original point and the original contentious point moot. Now we're just moving on. Okay. I guess we're going this way. Cool. Or, um, I love when I think that I can't handle myself and then I do, because the, the attack, so to speak, the predicted attack comes about in a different way where it's not an attack. I. The item and topic still comes up that I predicted, but in a much different way. And it's like, oh, when it comes up this way, I can, like, I can easily answer that. I, I have the answer to to, to that question and that concern. Here it is. And, and, oh, now we're fine. Okay, now let's move on. So I would just clock all these things and, and literally build up some evidence and really register that new evidence.'cause your brain is a fantastic and very. Powerful tool. It's a very powerful instrument. But if you train it, so to speak, on, Hey, here's what actually happens in these, it'll go, oh, okay. Here's what actually happens in these. Let me find more evidence to reinforce that. And so eventually you will just skip over and be like, positive things are gonna come from this outcome. Or I can take this challenging situation. And even if the team has conflict, it can be positive conflict. And at the end we'll be closer for it. Okay? So go try this out in the next day, week, month, or if you run it for a quarter, that would be amazing and see what happens and see what happens for yourself and, uh, And if you have any questions or comments or wanna let me know how it goes, I would love that. You can shoot me an email at Emily at Next Level Coach. Otherwise, I'll catch you next week on leveraging Leadership.