ResumeWeAssist Enterprise

“Papa, let us follow the short cut road home”. My 5 years old daughter asked me to follow the short cut road going back to our apartment. I looked at her and stopped my car at the road side and pointed to a road sign and started to spell “ J A … Ja, L A N… lan, Jalan, M A… Ma, T I… Ti, Mati…. Jalan Mati (in Malay) which means Dead End. I explained that to her. Obviously, it clearly shows that the road has been blocked and there is no need for me to drive down that road to check if it is really blocked or not. I assumed that the road is blocked based on the road sign. At that time, I believed I’ve made a fair judgement.

But after what happened last week has changed my perspective in my decision making. My 5 years old daughter still insisted me to drive down that road to see if it is really blocked or not. Since I have some time to spend, I’ve decided to follow what she wants. I drove down the road, passed the “Jalan Mati” sign and at the end of the road, I was shocked to see there is nothing blocking the road. With my mouth opened and looked at my the daughter who was smiling along the way, I’m totally speechless at that time. At that moment, it triggered me a very important lesson learnt from my 5 years old daughter; never ever assume.

I’m sure you might have gone through a similar experience back at home, in the office and maybe anywhere. Making assumption has been part of our life especially for me who studied engineering. Back in the university and also at work, I’ve been trained to make engineering judgement based on assumption. How the process works is with some engineering data, I have to make decision even though I’m not sure if the decision will be correct or not. But as an engineer, I have to make that engineering decision. Many of us have to do the same regardless in whatever field you are working. Obviously, decision making based on assumption do save time and also some are successful but there are also many catastrophic disasters happened because of poor assumption.

The focus of this article is to persuade all of us to improve our decision making based on a better assumption making process. Inside our brain, we have a almond shape part which is called amygdala. The function of the amygdala is to store information based on your experience. Your emotion and behaviour will be controlled by the information available in your amygdala. Taking myself as an example, my amygdala told me the road sign written as “Jalan Mati” means it is a dead end. But the experience I went through with my daughter that day, my amygdala is not giving me the right information. Well, my daughter’s amygdala is still empty and that is why she still insisted me to drive down that road or maybe she don’t trust me . Anyway, my first point is never trust your amygdala. Your past experience does not guarantee you in making a good assumption.

So now we know we can’t trust our amygdala. Then, what should we do? We should confirm our assumption. If you happened to encounter an experience you are familiar with, do take some precaution to think through it carefully. Stop your amygdala to influence your decision making. Bear in mind that the same experience you have gone through previously might not be the same for this round. Explore all possibilities and collect information as much as possible than only make that decision.

Finally, thank god our amygdala is rewritable. With some courage and determination, the information in our amygdala can be erased, modified and also add on. Whatever your have learnt while you are confirming your assumption must be stored into your amygdala. Based on that new experience, it will help you be more effective in making assumption for your decision making in the future.

Before I end this article, obviously you can’t escape from making assumption in your daily life. But now you know that there is an almond shape part in your brain called amygdala which can help you make a better assumption. But remember, start by not trusting it, confirm your assumption and restore what you have learnt in your amygdala.

Believe me this works and I learnt it from my 5 years old daughter.