Cost of Assuming
We operate every day on implicit assumptions. These are beliefs about how systems work, what’s allowed or forbidden, what’s realistic or absurd. These assumptions are rarely questioned, embedded deep in our routines and thought processes. But what happens when these quietly held beliefs turn out to be fundamentally incorrect?
The costs aren’t immediately obvious. Unlike visible mistakes such as sales shortfalls, budget overruns, or failed product launches, the damage from flawed assumptions quietly accumulates. Friction, confusion, and wasted energy build incrementally, silently draining momentum and limiting ambition. These invisible costs can be massive. Yet, precisely because they’re so embedded, implicit assumptions are incredibly hard to notice, let alone discuss—like the proverbial fish unaware of the water it swims in.
Take something as simple as office meetings. For decades, the assumption that “effective work means constant meetings” went largely unquestioned. Challenging this led directly to innovations like asynchronous workflows, allowing teams to gain productivity previously lost to habitual meeting overload.
I’ve noticed this in my own experience. I tend to naively assume the point of a meeting is what’s listed in the agenda, only to discover it’s something else entirely. Perhaps it’s really about building consensus for a decision already made, or giving visibility to work that’s already completed. This misalignment creates frustration and wasted preparation time that could be avoided with more transparent communication about the actual purpose.
Implicit assumptions also limit our behavior in deeper, more insidious ways. Consider Overton’s Window: the range of socially acceptable ideas and behaviors, constantly shifting, sometimes dramatically. Things accepted as normal yesterday can become suddenly unacceptable today. The speed of these shifts creates widespread confusion and hesitation. People burn enormous amounts of cognitive energy decoding subtle cues, trying desperately to avoid social pitfalls. This hidden overhead of uncertainty and self-censorship is costly, rarely acknowledged, and profoundly limiting.
Another personal example: I tend to assume people operate in good faith, especially when our incentives are aligned. While this assumption serves me well most of the time, it occasionally leads to blind spots where I miss political maneuvering or unstated agendas that influence outcomes.
Behavioral economics highlights that humans rely heavily on heuristics—mental shortcuts that generally serve us well. However, implicit assumptions aren’t just heuristics. Little by little, these assumptions become unquestioned norms. Unlike heuristic thinking, which we know can sometimes be inaccurate, implicit assumptions reach an equilibrium where we no longer even consider challenging their validity. They’re so deeply ingrained that even identifying them feels unnatural. It’s difficult to discuss the meta-level because questioning our fundamental assumptions feels inherently uncomfortable. Opportunities that exist outside these implicit boundaries go perpetually unexplored—not because they’re impossible, but simply because no one thought to ask.
One of my favorite examples of this is the one with the bananas and the sprinklers. The story typically goes like this: Researchers place five monkeys in a room with a banana hanging from the ceiling. When any monkey tries to grab it, all monkeys are sprayed with cold water. Eventually, the monkeys learn to attack any member who approaches the banana. As researchers replace the original monkeys one by one with new ones, the new monkeys—who have never experienced the water—are still attacked when they approach the banana. Eventually, none of the monkeys in the room have ever been sprayed, yet they all enforce the taboo without knowing why.
While this specific experiment appears to be apocryphal, it draws inspiration from real research on social conformity and learned behavior. The closest documented studies include G.R. Stephenson’s 1960s experiments with rhesus monkeys involving air blasts (not water) and various human conformity studies by researchers like Solomon Asch. I could have sworn I’ve read the original article, but I really could not find anything about this study anywhere so it’s probably one of these pop sci confabulations that has taken on a life of its own.
The power of this parable lies in how perfectly it illustrates the persistence of implicit assumptions. Like the monkeys who enforce rules they don’t understand, organizations often maintain practices long after their original justification has disappeared. The story resonates because we recognize this pattern everywhere: in corporate policies that outlive their purpose, in social norms that persist without examination, in technical decisions that become dogma. Perhaps the most meta aspect is that the story itself has become an implicit assumption—repeated so often in business contexts that few question its authenticity. This adds another layer to the lesson about examining what we accept as truth.
Challenging Assumptions
Take SpaceX for example. For decades, the assumption was that rockets had to be disposable and prohibitively expensive, suitable only for government-backed programs. Elon, despite recent controversies, effectively disrupted this deeply-held belief by asking directly if rockets truly needed to be single-use. Reusable rocket technology fundamentally altered the economics of space travel. Challenging a deeply embedded assumption opened a new era of possibilities. One can’t expect to get an order of magnitude better through business as usual.
Explicitly confronting implicit assumptions provides clarity and creates opportunities beyond mere incremental improvements. It removes friction, unlocks creativity, and broadens what we consider achievable. When we commit to questioning our quietest, most deeply-held beliefs, we transition from passively accepting the familiar to actively exploring the unfamiliar. To genuinely challenge our assumptions, it helps to step completely outside our usual contexts. Try observing yourself, your motivations, and your objectives with the detached curiosity of an alien visitor, relentlessly asking why you do what you do.