What if the biggest constraint in your organization... is your own assumptions?

Photo by Ricardo Gomez Angel

"Clients find insurance boring."

We hear this from insurance professionals regularly and understand why this becomes their reality after years of polite but disengaged client interactions. These professionals genuinely care about helping their clients, but they've learned to expect a particular dynamic: meaningful conversations that feel like necessary chores.

What we're sensing, though, is something different emerging when these same professionals begin approaching conversations from a place of curiosity rather than assumption.

One professional we worked with decided to try something new: instead of presenting insurance solutions, she asked about the business challenges of keeping her clients awake at night. Suddenly, those same "bored" clients were leaning forward, sharing concerns they'd never voiced, and co-creating approaches they'd never imagined possible.

Nothing about the insurance or clients changed, but everything about what became possible shifted completely.

What are we sensing here?

As we consider this example, what strikes us isn't just the shift—it's how real those original constraints felt. That professional wasn't making up the disengagement; she was experiencing it, day after day. Her assumptions weren't arbitrary but based on genuine patterns she'd observed.

Yet something profound was happening beneath the surface: the constraints weren't actually about the clients or the industry—they were about the context in which conversations took place.

We've noticed this pattern repeatedly through our work with mid-sized service providers. Teams that feel genuinely limited by market conditions, client expectations, or resource constraints discover something unexpected when they create space to question what they take for granted.

This practice connects to Ellen Langer's research on mindfulness, which she defines not as meditation but as the ability to notice what's happening moment by moment rather than operating from assumptions shaped by experience. Her work reveals something profound: What if many of the barriers we experience as external and fixed are actually perceptual—and therefore changeable?

Pausing to understand how this happens

Before we explore what becomes possible, let's take a moment to understand how these perceptual constraints develop. They're not random, and they're not failures of imagination.

When professionals repeatedly experience specific client responses, their minds naturally create frameworks to predict and navigate future interactions. "Clients find this boring" becomes a protective strategy—better to expect disengagement than to be disappointed by it.

These patterns serve a purpose. They help us manage uncertainty and conserve energy. But they can also create invisible boundaries around what we believe is possible.

We're learning alongside the organizations we work with that recognizing these patterns with compassion—not judgment—opens the door to sensing what else might be true.

Creating space for different perspectives

The insurance professional didn't force a change in her clients. Instead, she created a different context for their conversation. She moved from presenting solutions to exploring challenges, delivering information, and discovering possibilities together.

As we reflect on this with other service providers, we're sensing similar shifts emerging:

• Strategic Sensemaking: Teams that regularly pause to ask "What are we noticing?" before jumping to familiar responses often discover opportunities hidden by their assumptions.

• Compassionate Inquiry: The entire dynamic can shift when leaders approach "difficult" client situations with genuine curiosity rather than predetermined solutions.

• Context Consciousness: Organizations experimenting with different environments for thinking—quiet reflection spaces, cross-functional dialogues, fresh perspectives from outside—often find that "impossible" challenges become workable.

We're not talking about technique changes here. We're sensing something deeper: perceptual shifts that reveal always-present, inaccessible capabilities within the old context.

What we're learning about leadership

The leaders who seem most effective at creating these shifts share something important: they help people see situations differently rather than telling them what to do differently.

When that insurance professional discovered she could address business challenges rather than sell products, her leader didn't provide new techniques. Instead, they had created an environment where questioning assumptions felt safe and exploring new approaches was encouraged.

As we work with organizations navigating complex change, we're sensing that this capacity—to help others see with fresh eyes—might be one of the most needed leadership capabilities for our time.

What becomes possible when leaders focus on creating conditions for insight rather than providing answers?

The invitation to explore

We're curious about what this stirs for you. As you reflect on your own organization's work:

• Where might assumptions about "how things are" shape what feels possible?

• What would you explore if you knew that some of your most challenging constraints might be perceptual?

• How might your clients' needs and interests differ from what you've come to expect?

What we're sensing about service evolution

The shift from delivering services as products to creating meaningful impact requires what we're calling integrated capability—weaving together change leadership and service innovation as one connected strength.

But here's what we're discovering: this doesn't happen through traditional training or new processes. It emerges when organizations create conditions where people can see beyond current assumptions and connect their existing knowledge, experience, and networks to serve a deeper purpose.

What's particularly fascinating is how this mirrors what David Robertson calls the "Third Way" of innovation—creating complementary innovations around your core strengths rather than abandoning what made you successful in the first place. The insurance professional didn't throw away her expertise; she innovated around it by changing the conversational context, adding business challenge exploration, and creating new approaches while keeping her insurance knowledge at the center.

When organizations shift their perception of what's possible, they often discover opportunities to innovate around their existing capabilities to create entirely new value, without disrupting their fundamental strengths.

What’s possible in your organization?

We sense the possibility that your organization can likely already have a profound impact. The question isn't what new skills to acquire, but what perceptual shifts might reveal opportunities to innovate around the potential already there, waiting to be expressed differently.

We're genuinely curious about your experience and would welcome the opportunity to explore together what might emerge when teams feel permission to see their work—and their impact—differently.