Want to see your brain in action? Complete these sentences.
• Yabba dabba ..
• One, two, three, f...
• Red, Yellow, Blue, Gr…
• Apple, Banana, Pear, Gr…
Notice how context shapes your response?
You’re experiencing your brain’s preference for pattern recognition.
👉 And what comes first, matters.
This is the principle of anchoring, and it shows up everywhere at work.
- A customer hears your first price and every other option feels expensive or cheap relative to that.
- A colleague starts a meeting with “this might be a problem…” and suddenly everyone is looking for risks rather than opportunities.
- A performance review starts with one negative, and it colours everything that follows.
- The first solution in a brainstorm becomes the focal point, even if better ideas come later.
So, how can you use anchoring in a constructive way?
✅ Be intentional with the first information you share.
✅ Lead with the outcome you want people to focus on (e.g. "We’re on track to deliver a high-quality result, so we’ve adjusted timeframes slightly to make that happen” rather than “We’ve hit a few issues and things are running behind”)
✅ Share context before you get to the challenges
✅ Set expectations (e.g. price, timeframes) early in your discussions
👉👉 Choose your opening words carefully because they’re having more of an impact than you might think.
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