“Never assume.”
I learned that phrase in a training over 15 years ago. I don’t remember the trainer’s name. I don’t remember the curriculum. But those two words stayed with me.
A decade ago, I was in a second-round technical interview at a well-known tech company. The question: find the optimal path in Snakes and Ladders.
I had never played the game.
The interviewer assumed I had. When I said I wasn’t familiar with it, they explained the rules — briefly, impatiently. I asked follow-up questions. The explanation stayed vague. I made assumptions, built on shaky ground, and delivered a mediocre solution.
An hour later, I opened Wikipedia. Read the rules. Solved the problem in under five minutes.
The problem was never the algorithm.
The problem was assumed shared context. The interviewer lost signal on a candidate. I lost an opportunity. Both were avoidable.
Real leadership starts before the problem. It starts with checking: what does this person actually know? What context are they missing? Does this shared language mean the same thing to both of us?
This sounds simple. For most people, it is genuinely hard to master — especially for those who have been rewarded, over years, for being the fastest person in the room.
Never assume. Listen first. Contextualise relentlessly.
The two minutes you invest in that will save hours on the other end.