How Making Assumptions Can Be A Huge Mistake

Developing the Next Generation of Rainmakers How Making Assumptions Can be a Huge Mistake   I was thinking about assumptions this past weekend when I watched the PGA tournament. If you watched, or read the sports section on Monday, you saw David Price, the pro at our golf course here in Dallas asking Dustin Johnson if he had grounded his club in the sand on the 18th hole. Dustin Johnson grounded his club because he assumed the sand was not a bunker, had not read the detailed memo the PGA posted that said any sand on the course was to played as a bunker and did not ask David Price before entering the sand. His assumption may have cost him the PGA tournament victory. As lawyers we sometimes make assumptions before reading an entire document, not asking a good question or not listening to a client’s entire story. In  The Trusted Advisor, authors    David H. Maister, Charles H Green and Robert M. Galford    end their discussion of the art of listening with a story. I practiced law for 37 years developing a national construction law practice representing some of the top highway and transportation construction contractors in the US.