“I Thought You Meant…”: The Hidden Assumptions Breaking Your Business
The most expensive failures in business rarely come from bad strategy and instead come from assumptions no one ever said out loud.
Maartje van Krieken looks at how unspoken assumptions quietly undermine decision making, weaken business alignment, and slow execution long before problems show up on a dashboard. She reframes assumptions as hidden requirements for success and explains why shared language often masks very different realities. Teams leave meetings believing they agree, yet they move forward with conflicting interpretations that later surface as friction, stalled progress, or blame. How often does alignment exist in theory but not in practice?
Drawing on disaster management, Maartje offers a more resilient approach to leadership under pressure. Operational resilience depends on naming what is believed to be true, revisiting assumptions on purpose, and treating course correction as competence rather than failure. AI, she cautions, does not remove assumption risk and can deepen it when clarity is missing. The real work lies in making assumptions visible, defining tripwires, and updating decisions as reality shifts. The question for leaders is simple: are you managing the plan, or managing the assumptions holding it together?
Episode Breakdown:
00:00 The Most Expensive Sentence in Business
03:10 Assumptions as Hidden Requirements in Decision Making
08:45 When Communication Failure Is Really Assumption Failure
13:20 Why AI Doesn’t Solve Assumption Risk
16:45 What Disaster Management Teaches About Operational Resilience
22:30 Triggers, Assumption Expiration, and Leadership Discipline
Connect with Maartje van Krieken:
Connect with Maartje on LinkedIn
Visit The Chaos Games Consulting website
Visit The Business Emergency Room website
Subscribe to The Business Emergency Room on YouTube
Subscribe to Maartje’s Substack
Host Maartje van Krieken is a crisis strategist and decision-making expert who thrives in high-stakes business environments. Combining disaster management training, hands-on experience in global industries, and leadership skills honed as a seasoned sailor, she helps businesses navigate chaos with precision. Whether tackling transformation, scaling challenges, or leadership bottlenecks, Maartje delivers actionable insights to turn turbulence into traction.
Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm
