It was in my first coaching session with a new client. He had hired me because he felt like he was trapped on a plateau in his career. He knew that he had more potential and wanted to realize it. For the first 45 minutes of the session, he was giving me his version of the state of the union.
“So and so is incompetent.”
“My boss has no courage. He won’t stand up to anyone. I bring him ideas and he agrees but if anyone from corporate makes any noise, he backs down right away.”
“I have more vision for this than anyone else.”
When he paused for a breath, I asked him, “Aside from telling me how stupid everyone else is, what would make the best use of our time together in this coaching container?”
“Wait,” he responded. “Do you really think that I think that everyone else is stupid? I don’t want you thinking of me like that.”
“That’s what you have spent the last 45 minutes telling me,” I replied.
“But all this stuff I’m telling you is true, Josh. How am I supposed to work with these people?” It was as if you could audibly hear a door unlocked with his question. Now he was considering what other possibilities existed for him.
Advancing that question further, I asked him: “Is it possible that these people are doing the best they can? And, wouldn’t it be a better use of your time meeting them where they are and offering your experience, skill, and enthusiasm to help them get better?”
We spent the rest of our session unpacking what a mindset shift could look like in action, considering how he could be a better teammate, in what ways he could choose to see the best in others, and how he could help others consider greater potential for the team.
This is what my coaching colleague Mike Goldman refers to as The Law of Positive Intent. It’s choosing to believe that others are doing their best. It’s a response of curiosity before judgment. It’s giving someone the benefit of the doubt, as opposed to being critical of them, their intellect, their effort, or their performance. It’s differentiating someone’s ability to execute from who they are as a person. Simply put, it’s choosing to believe the positive.
Let’s face it, The Law of Positive Intent is as simple as it is difficult. I know that – for me – it takes constant reminding and awareness to choose to ascribe positive intent to others. It’s more natural to create a story around someone’s performance, describing them as lazy, incompetent, or in over their head versus tired, poorly trained, or poorly supported. Not only is the former more instinctual, it’s also easier. While ascribing negative intent to others, we simultaneously distance ourselves from them and elevate our own view of self. Stephen M.R. Covey says it this way in his book The Speed of Trust: “We judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their behavior.”
Allow me a story to illustrate the power of this point. I was in a coaching session with another client who has done a remarkable job scaling his family business. He was sharing his frustration with me about how his field operations manager isn’t getting the results he needs to continue to grow. In particular, he was frustrated by the lack of accountability under the field operations manager’s watch. I asked the business owner, “How are you holding the field operations manager accountable?”. He responded, “Well, we talk about things but that’s about it.” I asked the business owner to reflect on how his employee was holding his team accountable in the same way that the business owner was holding the field operations manager accountable. You can see the cognitive dissonance in which the business owner’s very frustration was present in how he was managing. The difference was that he was giving himself – up until this coaching session – a pass based upon his own intent, while judging his field operations manager by their behavior.
The Law of Positive Intent isn’t magic. It won’t create results on its own. It certainly will provide fuel for the tank, however. When we choose to offer the benefit of the doubt, we become curious about how we can support others. When we realize that they are doing the best they can, we wonder about what types of coaching, skills development, or trade knowledge they may need to improve their best. We consider how the company culture and the organization are drawing the best out of its individual members. This is a paradigmatic shift which takes us out of a hierarchical judgment and puts us into partnership. In doing so, trust is strengthened, creativity is inspired, and commitment is increased.
How do The Law of Positive Intent and the need for accountability work together? I’m so glad you asked! It’s really a great question, and the answer is simpler than you may think. It’s the Law of Positive Intent, not the law of positive results. We aren’t seeking to put rose colored glasses on to overlook poor performance. What we are doing is trying to recover the distinction between effort and results. Often times, business owners and employees will confuse a sincere effort with results. They are two entirely separate, yet related things. Effort is an attempt. Results are the outcomes of the attempt. We evaluate someone’s effort through positive intent. We evaluate the outcomes at face value. We can affirm someone’s effort, choose to see it positively, acknowledging it was their best while simultaneously acknowledging the results were poor. In fact, it’s critical to hold this distinction lest we fall into the five dysfunctions of a team or a failure to confront the brutal facts.
The client that I opened this blog post with decided that he was going to explore what it looked like to be a better teammate. He scheduled meetings with his coworkers, owned his side of the street, took a stand for what he believed in, and invited them to work with him on achieving even bigger things. In the end, it didn’t work out and he decided to leave that company. What I intentionally left out in the introduction was that – in the second half of the call I recapped above – he shared with me that there was a particular business he had wanted to own for a long time. I asked him what steps he had taken to acquire it. None. His first homework assignment was to call the owner and set up a meeting. As I write this today, the same person who began by identifying everyone else’s shortcomings is on a path to ownership of the organization he once only dreamed of leading. Business acquisitions can be challenging, and this one has been no different. Now, however, he sees that everyone is just doing the best they can and choosing to inspire them into something greater for themselves and the organization.
Last week, we were exchanging texts about a particular challenge. “Everybody’s a moron, Josh”, he wrote, jokingly referring back to our first call. We both had a laugh. Then he sent me this:
“Thank you for helping mold this leader. You’ve guided me to lead with empathy and I’ve spent time since our call outlining a future for this company with the people in it. Meeting people where they are and bringing them along.“