Solo Mission Series: How to Replace Workplace Assumptions with Clarity

A two-word email. A silent reply. A vague “we’ll circle back.” Your brain fills the gap and suddenly a small moment becomes a big problem. We dig into why assumptions feel so convincing and how to replace them with fast, respectful clarity that protects trust, time, and energy.

We start by naming the hidden habit that drives workplace conflict: the leap from facts to stories. Short messages trigger meaning-making, and meaning shifts behavior—tone hardens, effort drops, and relationships fray. We unpack the science behind this pattern: the brain’s prediction machine, negativity bias, fundamental attribution error, and the role of cognitive load when we’re stressed or tired. Understanding these mental shortcuts helps us design better ones.

Then we get practical. You’ll learn the 'Fact, Story, Ask' framework to separate what happened from what you’re telling yourself, generate alternate explanations, and ask the one question that clarifies. We add the 10-second clarifier toolkit—simple prompts like “Are we aligned on the outcome?” and “What does success look like in your eyes?”—that turn ambiguity into alignment in moments. For written communication, we introduce the neutral read rule and a leadership hack: use brief voice notes to convey tone and intent when it matters.

Close with a simple seven-day verification challenge to build the habit. Track when you make assumptions and whether you verified them. Expect more stable relationships, cleaner decisions, and calmer days. If this helps you lead with clarity, subscribe, share with your team, and leave a quick review so others can find it. What’s the first assumption you’ll verify today?

Meet the Host
Jay Johnson works with people and organizations to empower teams, grow profits, and elevate leadership. He is a Co-Founder of Behavioral Elements®, a two-time TEDx speaker, and a designated Master Trainer by the Association for Talent Development. With a focus on behavioral intelligence, Jay has delivered transformational workshops to accelerate high-performance teams and cultures in more than 30 countries across four continents. For inquiries, contact jay@behavioralelements.com or connect below!

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayjohnsonccg/
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/jayjohnsonccg/
Speaker Website - https://jayjohnsonspeaks.com

Transcript

Common Triggers That Spark Stories

The Brain’s Prediction And Biases

Fact Story Ask Framework

The 10-Second Clarifier

The Neutral Read Rule

Two Data Points Standard

Relationship Reset Script

Assumption-Proof Delegation

The Seven-Day Verification Challenge

Closing Mindset: Choose Clarity

Jay Johnson 0:38

Welcome to this episode of the Talent Forge, where together we're shaping workforce behavior. In this solo mission, we're going to tackle one of the most dangerous sentences that you can hear in the workplace. No, it's not I quit. It's not that this is unacceptable. And it's not even we need to talk. The most dangerous sentence is the one that you never say out loud. It's the sentence that you say in your head. I know what you mean. No, maybe you don't. You know what they think they meant, and the difference between that is where conflict can live. Most workplace problems are not actually caused by facts. They're caused by assumptions. And assumptions are just stories our brain tells ourselves when information's missing. Today's mission is to stop living inside of those stories. Here's what we're going to do today. We're going to define the assumption habit and why it's so common at work. We're going to walk through some examples that'll feel uncomfortably familiar, break down the science behind why humans create stories so fast. Ideally, you're going to walk away with a set of tools to replace these assumptions with clarity in real time. And I'm going to give you a seven-day challenge, an accountability plan that'll change how you communicate immediately. So this episode is for those leaders, HR directors, coaches, trainers, team members, high performers, and anyone who's ever thought, why are they doing that? Or are they doing this on purpose? Let's take a fix to that. We're going to start with the invisible problem. And here's what happens in most workplaces: something ends up occurring, whether it's an email that's really short, or a meeting invite that appears with no context, sometimes a deadline change at the last minute, or somebody that doesn't respond. We all have been there when our work gets edited, somebody says, we're going to circle back, or it's fine, or it's okay. And even before you blink, your brain starts to fill in the blanks. You don't experience the event. You experience the meaning that you assign to the event. Now that meaning ends up becoming a story. Once the story is in place, our behavior ends up changing. Our tone can shift, effort drops, we avoid the person, we escalate, we overexplain, we get passive aggressive. The real issue here is assumptions create emotional certainty without any evidence. And one of the things that I always say is if we're not talking it out, we're probably acting it out. Let that sink in for a minute. If you're not talking it out, you're acting it out. Because we end up feeling sure about something. But we're not exactly sure because we know we're sure because our brain does not like uncertainty. So let's talk about some stories. Here's an example the short email spiral. We've probably all been there. You send an email with care, thoughtfulness, clarity, and you get back two words. Got it. That's it. Instantly your brain goes, Well, they must be annoyed, or they don't even care. They didn't read it. They don't respect me. Maybe. Or maybe they're in back-to-back meetings and got it is actually a confirmation. But you don't ask. So now you walk into the next interaction already slightly tilted. And again, for not talking it out, we're probably acting it out. Maybe a different example is no response. Well, that immediately becomes rejection. You send that message and don't get a response for several hours. Brain starts to go, well, they must be ignoring me. They're mad. They don't care. I'm on my own here. But in reality, they could be on a flight, in a client meeting, handling a crisis, or they saw it and just want to give a thoughtful response later. You just manufactured a relationship problem out of a notification delay. How about something like we'll circle back? And your brain starts going, they don't even want this. This is never going to happen. They're not taking it seriously. Well, maybe that's true, but sometimes it can also mean I don't have enough information yet. We need to align on priorities. We're waiting on someone else. The story all of a sudden determines our mood, and our mood determines our behavior. Behavior determines the relationship. This is why assumptions can be really expensive. So let's talk a little bit about the science behind assumptions. The first is the brain is a prediction machine. Our brain is built to predict. This is what kept us alive because if we can predict it, we can survive it. Now, when it doesn't have the information that we need, our brain just makes it up. I was telling a story the other day about being in another area and somebody stops and asks you for direction, and your brain starts immediately going, Oh, well, maybe it's just down this way, or it could be over there. And we have absolutely no idea, but the brain all of a sudden starts to pick up signals and come up with a story of where it could be. Not because we're trying to sound smarter, or not because we're uh, you know, not because we're trying to, you know, give disinformation out. It's nothing like that. It's just that our brain craves certainty. We want to know. And if we think about it in the wild or in our ancient ancestry, if we didn't know, uncertainty could get us killed. So our brain really fills in the gap to create a sense of control. The second piece of science that really helps us understand assumptions is negativity bias. The brain tends to fill in gaps with negative interpretations. So let me give you the example. Uh, I've used this in a number of different places, but something along the lines of, I need you to come down to my office. Well, in the history of no one where they're like, yes, I'm getting a raise, it's almost always, oh my God, what did I do wrong, or what screwed up, or what am I in trouble for now? Now, I always, you know, conclude this with we get down to the boss's office thinking the worst possible scenario. And the boss goes, uh, you we're ordering pens. Do you want red ones or blue ones? And we're sitting there and we beat ourselves up because we've been living in uncertainty and anxiety all day, thinking the worst, and it was something innocuous. Now, in survival terms, it's safer to assume that danger is lurking around the corner rather than to assume safety. So when we hear something that breeds this uncertainty, we immediately start going, they're upset, they're undermining me, they're judging me, they're trying to control me, even when none of that may be true. The third area to think about is fundamental attribution error. So, classic social psychology, when you do something, it's because of the situation. When someone else does something, it's because of their character. You're late because of traffic. They're late because they're careless or they're not interested in and respecting your time. You forget because you're overloaded and you just don't have the brain capacity right now. They forget because they don't respect you. Now, this bias ends up destroying teams. We assume the worst for somebody else, and we give ourselves the break. And this is one of the big problems with assumptions. The last area I want to talk about is cognitive load and story shortcuts. When people are stressed, tired, or overloaded, they end up assuming more because verifying takes a lot of energy. I mean, if we had to go and search for every single answer or confirmation, well, that would be exhausting. So assumptions rise in these exact moments, and it's often when we need clarity the most. But the idea that when we're tired, we end up making more assumptions or allowing these stories to really penetrate, that is a huge danger. So let's take a look at what we can do to fix this. This is one of the tools that we use in difficult conversations as well as any kind of just opening statement. And it's called the fact story ask tool. Now, if you remember one thing from this episode, it's this most conflict is not actually about the facts, it's about the unverified stories. So we're going to separate them out with the fact story ask. When you feel triggered, think about it this way: ask yourself, what objectively is happening? Now, that's the facts. What can I see? What can I hear? What are those pieces that are tangible? Consider that the facts of the situation. The second part is the story. And this is what meaning we're assigning to said facts. All right. So I'll give you an example here in just a moment. The third area is what's the alternate story? What's a different story that might explain it? And then the fourth area is the ask. What question would clarify? So let me give you the example that I use in training. Let's say that you've worked with somebody who is quote unquote lazy. All right, well, what are the behaviors? What are the facts that would tell you that this person's lazy? Maybe it's that they're showing up late. Maybe it is that they're not stepping up for new projects. Maybe it's that uh they're not completing their work in a meaningful way, or could be that they're falling asleep at their desk. All of those would be the facts. What objectively we can see, touch, taste, hear, those things that are the stimuli that we are perceiving. All right. So we look at the facts. Now, the story. Well, the story is that they're lazy, that that person just doesn't care, that they're disengaged, etc. But what's the alternate story here? Well, perhaps this person is burned out. Perhaps this person has a number of personal things going on at home. Maybe this person is not lazy, but they're just disengaged because their manager has not necessarily created connection for them. Maybe they weren't onboarded properly and they don't know how to do these things. Maybe in their past experiences, those things weren't expected of them. There's a number of different stories, alternate stories, that could create those facts. So that's where the ask comes in. Now, in this situation, it could be, Jay, I'm noticing that you're not turning in uh your assignments on time. And the story I'm telling myself is that you're not necessarily seeing the value of this work or why this work is important to go in on time. They ask, can you help me understand what's happening here? All right. So here's the other example. They replied that they got it. Well, that's the fact. The story I'm telling myself, they're annoyed with this. An alternate story, they're busy. They ask, hey, quick check. Are we aligned on the direction? This emotional self-control is so important. When we take that action step of fact, story, alternate story, ask, and we walk through that process, it's going to create the clarity that we need to make sure that the assumptions are not triggering maladaptive behaviors. So utilize the fact story ask to help us get rid of those assumptions. Now, second tool that I want to share with you is called the 10-second clarifier. This is a question and it's going to replace our behavior, right? Assumptions are not removed by willpower, they're removed by a simple clarification. So here's a couple of quick clarifying questions, 10-second clarifiers. When you said X, what did you mean by that? Quick check here. Are we aligned on the goal? Are we aligned on the outcome? Are we aligned on the action steps? Next one. What does success look like in your eyes? Now, when we talked about delegation, this is a huge one, painting what done looks like. What does success look like in your eyes? The next question could be something along the lines of, is this urgent or is it just top of mind? That's going to clarify us on time rather than making an assumption that we have to drop everything and do it. Another question might be do you would you like my input here, or is it just that you want me to execute? Now, that's going to open up some space of whether or not we can contribute, or is this just really in order? See, these questions and a number of other 10-second clarifiers can stop the brain from filling in blanks. But the key aspect here is to be aware that those blanks exist. This is where we have to get that self-control, that self-awareness, that when we might be triggered by assumptions or uncertainty, that we need to bring in just that quick 10-second clarifier that's going to help us fill in those gaps. So, an action step here is to think about a clarifying question that you can utilize in those different scenarios when maybe something triggers that assumption. The third question, this is really important. It's called the neutral read rule. All right. So think about any kind of written communication. Uh, if I was to send you a text message that says simply something along the lines of, how did the report, you know, how did the report get completed? Well, your brain might read that. How did this report get completed? How did this report get completed? How did this report get completed? See, there's all kinds of tonal inflection that could be missing here. Now, the neutral read rule is essentially extending grace. If it's ambiguous, read it neutrally first. All right, so not positively, not negatively, just neutrally. Then verify. Almost think to yourself: read this in a very monotone way. You can also then add different tonalities to it. Add a happy tone to it, add the negative tone that your brain probably did automatically right out of the gate. But then the key here is that we're going to want to verify. Okay. This alone can reduce conflict. Now, here is a game changer for you. If you're the person sending the message, whether that is a text message, whether that's an email or anything else, consider this cool hack. Now, most, especially if you're working with younger generation, they don't want you to pick up the phone and call. A lot of people are kind of adverse to actually making those phone calls. So here's a way for you as a manager or as a leader to send a message, but also include the tone. I like to do voice notes. So instead of sending that, how did that report come to this? I might actually take 10 seconds to say, hey team, just curious, how did that report get to this place? Love to understand this a little bit better. Thanks, and I'll look forward to hearing you soon. And I'll send it as a voice note. Now they're going to hear the tone and inflection that that message is intending. So not only can we do the neutral read when we receive a message, if we want to eliminate some of the uncertainty, especially in written communication, sometimes a voice message can be a game changer for helping other people not get into that confabulation about the assumptions. All right. Next tool. It's called two data points. All right, the two data points standard. See, one moment is not a pattern. So create a standard. Before you start engaging or believing in a negative story or assumptions, consider the fact that maybe you need at least two data points. If you only have one, you can't really make a conclusion. That's just a feeling, or maybe that's that internal thing welling up. And feelings are not facts, even if they feel true. So when you catch yourself maybe labeling something, wow, they must be upset, ask yourself, do I have two data points, or am I reacting to a singular moment? Is there multiple different inputs that's giving me this feeling, or am I just responding or reacting to one situation? So when we start thinking about each of those instances as a data point, and we start having to collect evidence, that's going to reduce the need for our brain to go into that confabulation of assumptions. All right. Last tool is the relationship reset script. So this is when it's already feeling a little bit tense. Now, you can use this when assumptions have created friction for you. This is the script. Hey, I want to check in with you on something. I might be telling myself a story about what happened. Here's what I observed, and here's how I'm interpreting it. Could you help me understand your intent? Now, this is a really powerful script because it's going to own the fact that we are interpreting something, right? We interpreted a cue, we interpreted a comment or a tone or an inflection. It doesn't accuse. It's not saying that they did or didn't do anything. And the reality here is it invites dialogue, it invites clarity and conversation. So most people are going to end up responding fairly well to this because it's honest and it's mature. Hey, I noticed this is what I interpreted that as. Can you help me understand? It goes back to the fact story ask, but this is sort of the post-incident or post-issue. Now, I am going to give you one bonus tool, and this is the leader tool. All right. So this is assumption-proof delegation, kind of following on our last episode. If you're a leader, your job is to remove ambiguity. We do that by forcing clarity in requests and decisions. All right. So here's a couple of different statements that you can add into your next delegation. Here's the goal. Here's the purpose. Here's the deadline. Here's the decision maker. Here's what done looks like. Now, in those different statements, we're not being controlling. What we're doing is we're actually building clarity, building stability, and creating the opportunity for clarity. Clarity is kindness, as Brene Brown says. And what we want to do is make sure that our delegation or anything else is clear. So in your next meeting or the next time that you're delegating, end it with let's confirm what we've decided and who owns that. We call this who does what by when. All right. Who is the is the stakeholder, does what, the expectation, and by when that deadline. So confirming what's been decided, who owns it, and when it's due. Okay. So here is the challenge that I'm going to give to you today. This is to hold ourselves accountable to uh making sure that we're not falling into stories. Over the next seven days, we want you to track something. How many times did you catch yourself making an assumption and did you verify it? That's it. At the end of the week, you're going to see a pattern. You're going to find maybe you assume more things when you're tired, when you're exhausted, maybe with certain people, uh, maybe with people that you feel excluded with, or when you have the highest levels of pressure or uncertainty. But the whole aspect here is not to judge yourself. All right. It's just to notice when did I make assumptions? And did I choose to verify? Did I choose to go into a process of actually ensuring that I'm not falling victim to the story? See, awareness here is the most important aspect, is when am I making these assumptions? Once you see the different triggers, well, that's going to give us the ability to actually change the behaviors. All of these different things, whether it's fact, story, ask, whether it's the uh 10-second clarifier, the two data points, all of these are very simple fixes once we become aware. So that's my challenge for you is can you find those different places where we're making assumptions and not verifying? So let's close with this. Assumptions end up feeling like intelligence. It feels like we're reading the room or maybe we're reading the behaviors, but most of the time, assumptions are really actually fears that are wearing some kind of suit. All right. They bring your brain to a place of protection. And they're protecting from uncertainty by inventing certainty. And I want you to hear that. They Protect the brain from uncertainty by inventing certainty. Now, if you want to be a better leader, a better teammate, a better colleague, a more stable human at work, here's the shift. We got to stop reacting to the stories and start verifying what is actually happening. Clarity is not awkwardness, it's respectful. Because the truth is, most people are probably not trying to get, are not out to get you. In reality, they probably aren't even thinking about you. And that's a big challenge for us to take on. So they're trying to survive their own day. We're trying to survive ours. So the mission here is simple: catch the story, ask the questions, and build the clarity. When we do that consistently, our relationships flourish, our decisions become better, and our energy ends up changing. So I just want to say thank you for joining me on this short solo mission today to tackle the stories that we tell ourselves. And if we're able to do that, it is most certainly going to shift your behaviors at work. So thank you for joining this episode of the Talent Forge, where together we're shaping workforce behaviors.