Almost nobody wakes up with the conscious intention to perform poorly in life. However, often, people’s behaviors and communications are misinterpreted as being lazy, unclear, and full of ‘excuses.’
Furthermore, almost nobody wakes up with the intention to help others feel they are performing poorly as possible in life. However, often, people’s behaviors and communications are misinterpreted as being attacks, rude, and diminishing.
Often, human beings are not explicit about their positive intentions for others (and themselves). When our intentions are ambiguous, then others are left to their own devices to extrapolate what we mean using their personal biases, historical experiences, and internal stories.
Read these statements within a context where you are receiving this feedback from a manager or someone ‘higher up’:
“I entirely disagree.”
“There’s a typo in your blog post.”
“You can do better than this…”
“You 100% bombed this project on this attempt.”
Notice how you received the communication, whether positive, negative, or neutral. Take note of your experience, especially if it is a negative feeling. We will work with this soon.
Now, assume that implicit in the above statements is a positive intention. The goal is to make that positive intention explicit. Here is how those statements might better communicate positive intention, combining principles from the previous section to rephrase them in a way that creates psychological safety too:
“I want us to succeed together. Your direction is clearly well thought out, and I am glad we are working together on this. Here’s where I think your approach needs adjustment.”
“Your talent deserves acknowledgment. I found a typo that, once adjusted, can add that additional level of ‘polish’ to match the quality of your work.”
“You have great potential— here’s where I want to help you improve.”
“I know you put a lot of effort into this, but I struggle at all to see how this helped us achieve our goal. Can you run me through your thinking process so I can be helpful?”
Notice how you would receive the adjusted communication as if they were coming from your manager, mentor, or ‘higher up.’ Assuming every communication has a positive intention, here is a frame for deducing the positive intention behind another’s communication:
What good thing do you want to achieve (for yourself and others) by communicating [[statement X]]?
The question above is a way to elicit the meta-message (the positive intention) behind all communications. By getting clear on your positive intention and communicating it upfront, you help generate psychological safety with others.
Now, read these statements within a context where you are offering feedback to a report, and they respond as follows:
“It just couldn’t be done in time.”
“The process you gave me doesn’t work here, so I used my own.”
“I forgot to update the KanBan in Notion because…”
Now, assume that implicit in the above statements is a positive intention. The goal is to make that positive intention explicit. Here is how those statements might better communicate positive intention, combining principles from the previous section to rephrase them in a way that creates psychological safety too:
“I was afraid to ask for help because the team was so busy, and I didn’t want to interrupt their workflow just to satisfy my own.”
“I wanted to take the initiative to get this done on time no matter what, so I used my process, which I know has worked before.”
“I was in flow, completing my high-priority tasks, and I didn’t want to disrupt that by updating the project status in Notion.”
Assuming every statement communicated has a positive intention, here is a frame for deducing the positive intention behind another’s communication:
What good thing do they want to achieve by communicating [[statement X]]?
When their communication is too ambiguous to deduce the positive intention, ask them the above question directly, “What good thing do you want to achieve by communicating [[X]]?”