Cindy was late for work again on that day. Others on the team were frustrated that she could never seem to be on time. In their eyes and those of her manager, she was just “irresponsible” and didn’t have a good “work ethic”. The manager called the Human Resources Manager and said, “Cindy was tardy again, she just doesn’t care. I’ve had enough, she always says she’ll try harder. Can I fire her?” The HR manager responded, “Maybe, but first please sit her down and hear her side of the story, then let’s talk about options.” When she sat down with Cindy, she learned a lesson in context. Context is the story behind what you see, it provides the background that gives life and a full picture by filling in the blanks. The manager knew Cindy was a single parent, which isn’t unique. What Cindy kept to herself and never talked about came out after she was confronted by her manager. First defensiveness, then tears, then the context poured out. In addition to her two children (one with a minor learning disability), she cared for her aging parents, who also frequently watched her children allowing her to work the evening shift. Earlier in the day her father went into the emergency room, and she had stayed with her mom until he came home shortly before she needed to be at work. Without them being able to watch her children that evening, on short notice she found a friend to watch her children who didn’t live on the way to work, so she was late. Cindy’s life was a constant balancing act, work was important, but so were her children and parents.

Unless you have no heart, I doubt you would have fired Cindy and instead would probably be asking what help she needs.

Yet we’re human and sometimes we make decisions with minimal facts because we believe we’ve dealt with the same situation before. We assume we know the context, when we don’t.

We make judgements about others based on only a fraction of their story, the part we see. Cindy’s co-workers assumed she was irresponsible or didn’t care about work, when in fact she did.

We see a social media post of what someone said and we’re incensed, even angry. The problem is while the words are accurate, the post provides no context. If you read everything that was said, you’d come away with a different feeling.

My career was spent helping leaders make the best decisions for the organization and the people who worked there. Many of those decisions were around discipline and termination. Early on in my career I learned about the importance of context through my mistakes. I was too black or white in my thought process. Because of those mistakes, which were both embarrassing and humbling, I learned the hard way to seek out all the facts to see the full context before deciding.

If you are a leader, I’m confident your staff will bring issues to you for input. If you’re a wise leader, you don’t give them the answer because that only helps for the moment, but you probably guide and help them look at all the facts and factors in making their own decision. Use these opportunities to teach context by not stopping with their initial decision, but continue on asking “what if” questions.

As an example, if someone came to me wanting to terminate a probationary employee who wasn’t meeting deadlines, that decision would be less complex because they are probationary. I would affirm their decision and then begin to ask some “what if” questions (changing the context) to see how they respond. I might ask:

• What if they have been employed for 10 years and never had this problem before, it’s a new pattern, what do you do?
• What if there are multiple employees struggling to meet those deadlines? What would you do?
• What if the employee has 20 years of organizational service, but 19 and a half were with a smaller organization that was recently acquired, and they are the only one retained in your department? What would you do?

Those “what if” conversations help you mentor your team and teach them the importance of context, preparing them for decisions they will need to make that aren’t black and white, but are grey. And often those decisions need to be made when you aren’t around.

Fools base their thoughts on foolish assumptions, so their conclusions will be wicked madness; Ecclesiastes 10:13 (GNT)