Getting down to earth with the ladder of inference
The Ladder of Inference is a model developed by organizational development pioneer Chris Argyris, and popularized in Peter Senge’s seminal book, The Fifth Discipline.
The ladder of inference is one of my all-time favorite tools for bringing awareness to our own thought processes, so that we can be better communicators, leaders, and humans. The model breaks down the process of how we move from the facts of a situation (the “bottom of the ladder”) to action (the “top of the ladder”), and all the things can go completely sideways in between.
To illustrate what this looks like in everyday organizational life, here’s an excerpt from a coaching conversation I had with a leader:
Leader: I need some help, I have to have a difficult conversation with one of my reports.
Me: What’s up?
Leader: He ignores me when I email him questions. Who does that? I’m tired of being disrespected.
Me: So it sounds like you are making requests for information to this person via email, and he is not responding. Is that accurate?
Leader: Well, I wouldn’t say I’m exactly making formal requests. I’ll share a few updates, maybe ask how his weekend was, and say something like, “hey, can you let me know about the timing of the next software release”. But we just end up having the conversation in our 1:1 meeting, because he ignores my email.
Me: What do you think might be going on there?
Leader: It seems like he just doesn’t respect me as a leader. I end up having to wait until our 1:1 when he could have just responded to my initial email.
Me: What other explanation can you think of?
Leader: Mmmmm, maybe he just doesn't like email?
Me: Perhaps! What else could be going on here?
Leader: Maybe he…thinks talking in person is better?
Me: What if you checked these interpretations with him? See if there’s something about email that isn’t working in these interactions.
Leader: Yeah, I could try that.
To be continued…
Can you start to see how conclusions that we hold with great certainty can actually be filled with untested and unvalidated assumptions, interpretations, and opinions? If we break this conversation down to the individual rungs of “the ladder”, it might look something like this:
Seeing the situation broken down in this way, you might be thinking: “WELL THAT ESCALATED QUICKLY”. But this type of rapid escalation - from the bottom rung to the top - happens so automatically that we often aren’t even aware of the distinction between the facts, the meaning we are making about it, and all of the other steps we go through to get to our decision.
Furthermore, when we’re operating from near the top of the ladder, that viewpoint influences the data we continue to select. This is why our conclusions often feel self-evident - because they are, based on a continuous loop of selected data that reinforces our beliefs and assumptions. In the case of the leader I coached, she hadn't checked her assumptions about what was going on with her report when she first noticed the behavior. From her view near the top of the ladder, she continued to only see data about the situation that confirmed what she saw as a pattern of ongoing insubordination, which in turn only made her assumptions and beliefs feel stronger and more reasonable.
SO WHAT HAPPENED!?!?
The conversation went on a bit longer, and we landed on this conversation starter for her next 1:1 meeting with her report: “Hey, I noticed that sometimes in my emails I will ask you a question, and you don’t respond via email, but wait until our one-on-one. One of the norms from my last workplace was that email was the main channel of communication for questions and information sharing, so I’ve been interpreting your email non-responses as ignoring my questions. I realize that there are some assumptions in there that may not be accurate, so I wanted to check in with you and hear what’s going on for you.”.
Important caveat: the above must be delivered with genuine curiosity. People aren’t dumb - they can smell judgment or passive aggressiveness.
Are you ready for THE SPOILER? It turns out that her report’s last boss only wanted to talk 1:1, and hated email. Furthermore, he was not picking up any urgency or sense of priority from the email questions, and just assumed they were less important to address than working on other current priorities. He thought he was doing her a favor by sparing her more email, and responding with an appropriate level of urgency to her requests. He was apologetic about HIS assumptions, and they had a great conversation about how to communicate going forward.
Now imagine if this leader had stayed near the top of the ladder and had come in strong with a “difficult performance conversation” about this serious problem of disrespectful behavior and not being engaged. 😳
How to walk yourself back down the ladder
The good news is that you have the power to break the cycle of conflict, confusion, and drama. Here are a few simple tips to try:
To start, if you find yourself challenged by a behavior or a situation, ask yourself, What else could be going on here? Or as Jennifer Garvey Berger puts it in her excellent book “Unlocking Leadership Mindtraps”, How could I be wrong? You might even imagine yourself climbing down from the top of the ladder, and standing next to it, so you can examine your assumptions and meaning-making with a bit of distance between you and the ladder. What other stories or assumptions could be true? Have some fun with it!
Go down to the bottom of the ladder to really consider the facts of the situation. How would a reporter witnessing this event describe it? Or how would you describe it in a way that anyone else involved would absolutely agree with? This is a lot harder than it sounds, because judgment and meaning-making will sneak in even when we think we’re being objective. You may think you are describing the observable facts of a situation with a statement like this: “When I asked the group if they had any questions about the presentation, Jean just glared at me angrily.”. But it takes some selective use of data, interpretation, and assumptions to get to “glared” and “angrily”. A more accurate description might be: “...Jean narrowed his gaze and did not share any questions.”.
If you’ve done the previous steps, you can check out your data and assumptions with the party or parties involved. This step should be done with preparation - going back down to the bottom of the ladder to get grounded in the facts of the situation - and with curiosity - by truly getting to a point where you believe that you don’t know the whole story. Think about the difference between saying “Why did you glare at me angrily in the meeting when I asked for questions?” vs “I noticed that you seemed to be squinting your eyes a bit, and didn’t answer when I asked for questions. I was worried that something was wrong. What was going on for you in that meeting?”. Maybe he just got some new contact lenses. Maybe he was thinking. Maybe in his culture, asking questions is not appropriate. You’ll never know unless you ask!
Why this matters
Unless we’re self-aware, we run the risk of interpreting things incorrectly or negatively based on assumptions and past experiences. In my experience, jumping to the top of the ladder is a major contributor to conflict, wasted time and resources, and painful workplace drama.
By walking ourselves “back down the ladder” to the solid ground of observable data, we can re-align our decisions and actions with a more accurate picture of reality, rather than the narrow aperture of our own faulty assumptions. You’ll have better information to make better decisions, spend less time stewing about things that may not even be true, and you’ll very likely learn new things.
Can you think of a situation where this model would have been (or will be) helpful to you? Try breaking down a tricky situation using the blank Ladder of Inference template below. And please share this blog post if someone you know might find this explanation of the Ladder of Inference useful!
