What Assumptions Are We Accepting?

Years ago, I attended a meeting of the Chittenden Solid Waste District where a proposal to spend $400,000 appeared certain to pass.

The City of Burlington wanted to modernize its recycling operation by replacing small recycling bins with large rolling totes. The proposal promised greater efficiency, better working conditions, and increased recycling rates.

After a brief presentation, the General Manager took a straw poll.  Every hand in the room went up.  Except mine.

The interesting part wasn't that I voted no.  It was that I couldn't fully explain why. 

I wasn't opposed to recycling.  I wasn't opposed to efficiency.  I wasn't opposed to better working conditions.  And yet something didn't feel right.

Over the next month, I found myself asking representatives from other communities a simple question: How do your residents benefit from this?

The more conversations I had, the more I realized we weren't really debating recycling.  We were debating an assumption.  Everyone had accepted the idea that because the proposal benefited Burlington, it was appropriate for the district to pay for it.

Once people started examining that assumption, the discussion changed.  Would private trash haulers receive similar support?  If not, why not?  If so, how much?  What would it mean for disposal rates?  What would it mean for district reserves? 

The proposal itself hadn't changed.  The assumption underneath it had simply become visible.  Once people started looking at the assumption, they started asking different questions.  When the board met again a month later, every community except Burlington voted against the proposal.

I've seen versions of that experience repeatedly throughout my career.  A strategic plan assumes growth will occur.  A budget assumes revenues will materialize.  An economic development project assumes the future will unfold as projected.  A board assumes everyone is trying to solve the same problem. 

The assumptions aren't necessarily wrong.  The danger comes when nobody notices them.

When a proposal seems obvious, I've learned to slow down and ask myself: What are we assuming?  Not because assumptions are bad.  Because the assumptions shaping a decision often determine the outcome long before the decision is made.

Most bad decisions aren't the result of bad intentions.  They're the result of intelligent people accepting a premise that nobody stopped to examine.

Sometimes the most important thing in the room isn't what people are discussing.  It's what everyone has quietly agreed to before the discussion even begins.