Week 4 Reflective Entry from Abhinav Shrivastava:

First of all, I would like to thank my peers Grichka and Ingrid for their contribution in the coaching call.

This time the theme of the coaching call was “The Ladder of Inference”. We had started the conversation with Grichka, Ingrid as the coachee and coach respectively. I was the observer for them.

Grichka explained his experience with us. It was one of the most practicable scenarios that each one had faced in our life. He shared that his conclusion was incorrect and because of that his actions got effected.

We also concluded that not only his conclusion affected his thoughts, but also the surrounding or environment where he had worked had some effect on his thoughts. Stress full atmosphere always have negative effect on one’s performance. As a result, he missed out some vital learning, which he could have learned if he was not had negative thoughts in begin of his internship.

Later, we swapped the roles –Ingrid became my coach and Grichka took the observer’s desk. I started sharing my experiences, and explained them in detail. Later, Ingrid asked some questions and felt satisfied in the end. They asked me whether I thought that I was wrong in data selection or my assumptions was wrong, then after discussion we came to the conclusion that I was wrong in building my assumption. Although there is a deep impact on the data selected for drawing the assumptions.

After that Ingrid shared her experience about the ladder of inference and told what mistake she had made. She told us because of the negative influence of the peers in the company, she had built a wrong image against her manager. But later she found that things are totally different. After discussion we all concluded that “meanings” (third stage of the ladder from the bottom are very much affected by thoughts or view of others.

After that we had concluded that this step—by-step procedures of decision making are very much helpful. We can go down the ladder to check process. But it is highly recommended that do not get into the trap of recursive loop between beliefs and data or conclusion and meaning (Name of the stages as mentioned in the case).

Over all, it was a wonderful discussion among us. It was an informative as well as knowledgeable session for each of us. I admit that – this call was much more fruitful as compared to the previous one. There is a lot of tuning and synergy among each of us.

Thanks for reading! 

Have a nice day.