Unless you've been living alone in a cave, you know that people jump to conclusions pretty frequently. The more stressed and pressured people feel, the more likely this is going to occur. One good tool for the interpersonal toolbox is to know about the Ladder of Inference so that you can catch yourself before you over-react or "climb the ladder" too quickly.

The Ladder of Inference is a model of how people process information (presented in Overcoming Organizational Defenses by Chris Argyris and The Fifth Discipline Field Book by Peter Senge and colleagues).

Here's the gist: One of the ways we deal with the onslaught of information thrown at us daily is to selectively edit, based on our pre-established beliefs and preconceptions about a lot of things. So what's the problem? While our beliefs may be our truth, they aren't always The Truth. Conflict arises when two or more people of differing opinions need their truth to be recognized as The Truth.

In default mode, we don't easily separate our beliefs and opinions with our concept of who we are. As a result, we may take differences of opinion very personally, draw quick conclusions, get offended and shoot off a nasty little retort that makes for distasteful interactions. String a bunch of these interactions together, and you've got a population of chronically offended people storming around alienating one another while giving themselves heart disease. Hardly the fertile ground from which collaboration can spring.

How does it work?

Throughout the course of our day, we make a lot of decisions about what's good, bad, neutral, attractive, unattractive, right, wrong, etc. The new guy in Accounting is very reserved, and we know another reserved person whom we perceive to be a real jerk, so we automatically conclude that the new guy in Accounting is a jerk. Someone in a red sports car nearly runs us down at the crosswalk, so everyone who drives a red car is a self-absorbed rudenik who routinely mows people down. You get the picture.

Tip

Take notice of when you're climbing The Ladder of Inference — drawing conclusions and making assumptions — throughout the day. When you conclude someone's a jerk, ask yourself what it is about the person that gives you this opinion; if you find yourself strongly disagreeing with someone else, ask yourself what it is about your own opinion that's so meaningful to you; if you find yourself getting tense and resisting someone else's opinion or request of you, ask yourself what it is about the situation that makes you think you have no choice.

Other good, all-purpose questions in these scenarios are, "why do I need to be right in this case?" and, "what's the worse that can happen if I just go with the flow right now?" If it's your style, jot your observations down in a notebook.

Just taking notice and questioning ourselves about our assumptions creates some space for the possibility that our belief may not be the only way of seeing something. At the very least, we'll have fewer disagreements and a little less stress.

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