As truly amazing as the human brain is, it’s not able to re-process everything we see anew every time we see it. Our brains take some shortcuts by basically ignoring things we are very familiar with, and that can cause us trouble any time we have interactions with people who don’t have the same level of familiarity with something as we do. I usually talk about this in reference to customer experience, but it actually applies to many areas of our lives.

To illustrate the concept, I have my Tree Stump Theory.

Imagine you walk into a conference room at your new job and see a giant tree stump on the table. You say something like “Hey, what’s with the tree stump?” Someone gives you a really compelling reason why it’s there, you say “OK,” and go on with the meeting. The next time you enter the conference room, you notice the tree stump but don’t ask about it. After a while, someone might throw a tablecloth on it or dress it up in some manner, but it’s still there. You no longer ask about it. Frankly, you don’t even see it anymore. You just sit down and go on with your meeting. Meanwhile, anyone new coming into the room for the first time can’t help but see the tree stump and find it to be an obstacle.

We all have these types of “tree stumps” in our businesses and in our lives. I bet you could think of something like this in your house right now. They manifest themselves as obstacles to good customer experiences, but they’re also our biases, our stereotypes, and any other set of assumptions we rely on, usually unconsciously, to drive our daily actions and decisions. Sometimes they’re relatively harmless, but more often than not tree stumps prevent people from buying in our channels, or they are the unspoken roots of disagreements and miscommunications in our daily interactions both at work and at home.

So how do we get rid of our tree stumps?

1. The first step is to recognize the fact that tree stumps are everywhere, even when we can’t see them.

If you’ve read this far, you’ve probably made it to step one.

2. Next, get some help finding them

The very nature of tree stumps makes them difficult to self-identify. If you’re concerned about tree stumps in strategies, customer experience, policies, or general decisions, seek some input from someone who is outside the general team and who has a different background from you and your key decision makers. Ask them to openly question everything. And by all means, ask people who are new to your team or business to catalog everything that seems weird to them.

3. Specifically call out assumptions, preferably in writing

Assumptions are the roots of tree stumps. We make assumptions so often that we don’t always realize we’re making them. Listen for statements or reasons that hint of tree stumps. The most obvious is “That’s the way we’ve always done it.” If you hear that one, sound the sirens. But there are other, less obvious comments like “People want…” or “Based on my experience…” or “In a previous life we…” Don’t get me wrong, some of these statements could be perfectly accurate and valid. But whenever someone is applying past experience to a currently situation, he or she is assuming the two situations are similar enough to warrant the comparison. That’s potentially an assumption fraught with problems because the number of potentially important variables in any situation is massive. Writing down those assumptions and then testing them on the current situation often brings bad assumptions to light.

Also, on the customer experience front, remember that while your internal reason for a tree stump may seem extremely valid to everyone in the company, your customers don’t know those reasons and even if they did, they probably don’t care. Common explanations that won’t hold water with customers include: “I’m not in charge of that area;” “It doesn’t matter because people don’t use that anyway;” or the time-honored classic, “That’s due to the limitations of our platform.”

4. Schedule regular reviews of your own assumptions

This one in some ways is a repeat of #3, but the point here is to specifically and methodically question yourself. This is really hard to do, of course, but it has a tremendous amount of value. One technique I’ve used in various situations is to write down my first impressions of important situations so that I can regularly review them in the future after I’ve learned more. Beyond that technique, it just takes practice and discipline to think about your own biases and assumptions to see if they still apply.

I also find it helpful to constantly look for new ideas. I read lots of business and science books. I don’t always agree with everything I read, but new ideas cause me to question my own ideas. I enjoying reading thought-provoking articles, and I follow interesting people on social media . More than anything, though, I love to spend time talking to people who think differently than I do and are willing to share their perspectives.

Tree stumps are everywhere. We’ve all got them. And as soon as we remove some, more will crop up. It takes a concerted effort and a solid process to regularly look for and remove the tree stumps in our lives and our businesses. But I’ll argue that those of us who are aware of our tree stumps are on a much faster path to improvement than those who go on ignoring them.