The Showerheads Were Too High. My Assumptions Were Higher.

I went for a misty run on the prom, circled back to the rugby club where Matie was at practice, and walked into the rugby club's changeroom for a shower. I glanced up, and immediately felt like I’d stepped into a design decision that had… opinions.

The showerheads were high. Not “slightly inconvenient” high. Properly high. The kind of high that makes you instinctively wonder who, exactly, this space is for… and more interestingly, who it’s not for.

My brain, ever efficient at filling in gaps with confident nonsense, got to work.

This must be exclusionary. Maybe it’s to keep kids from using the showers. Maybe it’s a subtle deterrent for vagrants. Maybe it’s one of those quiet, architectural ways of saying, “this space is not for everyone.”

All of that thinking happened in about three seconds. No evidence. Just a neat little narrative, gift-wrapped by my own worldview. Then something rare happened. I asked the coach about it up in the bar, and he laughed.

It turns out the showers are high because the average user is not five-foot-something. They’re closer to six-foot-five. The Eben Etzebeths of the world, right? For them, those showerheads are exactly where they should be. And proud Hamilton, all 150 years of history wrapped inside of this epic club, has had its share of giants.

Also… tradition, right?

After the game, after the mud, after the adrenaline, comes the clubhouse. A few drinks. A bit of laughter. Then, inevitably, a bit of chaos. Rugby players are many wonderful things—disciplined, committed, team-first. And, in the right setting, they can also be delightfully destructive.

And historically, the taps didn’t survive. So the system adapted. Put the plumbing high enough that it’s out of reach of the chaos. Not to exclude outsiders, but to protect the infrastructure from insiders.

The design wasn’t about keeping people out - it is a clever strategy for managing the reality of the people already in.

That’s when the penny dropped. I had taken a single observation and run it through my own internal lens… my assumptions about fairness, accessibility, and intent… and confidently arrived at the wrong conclusion.

The world, it turns out, wasn’t shaped by my paradigm. It was shaped by a completely different set of constraints. And there it is, hey. We don’t see reality as it is. We see reality as we are. It’s Covey. It’s Frankl. It’s the Stoics. And it’s the Enneagram.

The work I do around the Enneagram constitutes more than just an interesting personality framework. For me, it becomes a practical tool for not being wrong about the world.

Each of us walks around with a preferred way of interpreting events. A default lens. A pattern of meaning-making. It’s efficient. It helps us move quickly. But it also quietly distorts.

An Enneagram Seven like me, for example, might see those high showers and think, “That’s weird! Someone didn’t think this through.” A One might think, “That’s poorly designed. This needs fixing.” A Six might go, “Is there a safety reason for this?” Each lens produces a different story. Each story feels true, yet none necessarily reflects reality.

Reality usually sits one layer deeper, waiting patiently for someone to ask a better question.

Why was this actually done?

Not: “What do I think about this? Rather: “What constraints were they catering for?”

Not: “How does this fit my model?” Instead: “What model were they operating in?”

The rugby showers are a small example, but the pattern is everywhere.

In business, we misread decisions all the time. We assume incompetence where there’s actually context. We assume bad intent where there are actually trade-offs. We assume exclusion where there’s actually protection. In teams, it’s even more dangerous. Someone behaves in a way that doesn’t fit our expectations, and we assign a motive. We tell ourselves a story. We react to that story, not the person. And the distance between those two things is where misalignment lives.

The discipline, then, is not to trust your first interpretation. Your first interpretation is fast, familiar, and often wrong. The better move is curiosity. The rugby club didn’t design against people; it designed for reality.

So the next time something feels off, and you find yourself hurrying to judgment and even taking offence… when it is too high, too rigid, too strange… there’s a quiet invitation sitting there. Not to judge, but to investigate.

Because somewhere between your assumption and their intention is the truth.

PG’s Pro Tip:

When you find yourself challenged and triggered, do this AI prompt instead of shouting at the inconsiderate driver/rude waiter/high shower head/inappropriate flash.

ChatGPT Prompt 

“I am an Enneagram Type [insert type]. Based on my default tendencies, how am I likely to misinterpret the following situation: [describe situation]?

What assumptions am I making that may not be true?

What alternative explanations could exist if I viewed this through the lens of other Enneagram types?

What questions should I ask to better understand the real constraints or intentions behind this situation?

Finally, what would a more objective, reality-based interpretation look like?”

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