Is ‘assume good intentions’ the new growth mindset curse?
Are we facing a new wave of a great research being misused, misinterpreted and generally banded about inappropriately?
I’ve sat through many a conversation, meeting or training about @growthmindset and have experienced everything from underwhelm to annoyance to anger. It is something bounded around so easily these days. “You need a growth mindset”, or “you have a fixed mindset”, or better still, “you just need to change your mindset”. Ironically, for this piece, the use of growth mindset is done with good intention, but can actually cause a huge amount of damage when explored only at surface level.
The use of a powerpoint slide comparing growth and fixed mindset must be the kind of nightmares that keep the likes of Dweck awake at night.
Now back to the topic at hand…..stay with me here…..
This idea of assuming good intentions, does in fact, come with its own good intentions. The irony is not lost on you right?
When faced with a difficult conversation, an awkward interaction or an uncomfortable situation, the suggestion to consider ‘good intentions’ can feel painful at best and downright rude at worst. So let’s clear something up. There will be times that someone is being a total jerk. There will be times when someone thinks humiliation or belittling someone you in public is acceptable. And that sucks. There is no expectation here for you to reframe a conversation and accept any responsibility for the behaviour of another person. You are only responsible for you and your wellbeing. Just like with all examples of self-reflection, considering good intentions can be helpful if it brings YOU a sense of peace and clarity. If it lets you move onwards and upwards without chest pains, sweaty palms and teary eyes.
Remember that, your reaction, your feelings are likely to be more about the stories you are telling yourself than what was actually said.
For example, I was recently accused of ineffective communication. i.e. someone not knowing something they thought they should have known about. The accusation landed on the desk of a very senior person at work without so much as a conversation happening with me. They then went on to deny a number of communication pieces had existed despite me evidencing to the contrary. The irony of that is not lost on me by the way! Now this stabbed me right in the heart. I would consider myself to be a good communicator and, as a team, we work extremely hard to loop in others to our plans and projects. As such, my gut reaction, was to feel angry, upset and well, pissed off! But as I dug a little, I became aware that my feelings were less to do with the accusation and more to do with what I perceived it meant. Did everyone think I was a shit communicator? Are people talking about me behind my back? Does this senior person now think I’m bad at my job? I was working myself up into a state.
It was time to give this scenario a good shake, hold a mirror up to myself and see what emerged. That, by the way, can be painful. This is not something I was prepared to do just a few years ago. Things that felt like an attack were boxed off as ‘their problem’. How dare they say these things about me? With age, and a 3-year-old, I’m a little more reflective these days.
Here’s my rundown of the perspective shifts I used to do some digging around why I felt so triggered:
I made three columns; what was said, the stories I have told myself, and my feelings. I explored the connections and reviewed what was fact and what was perception.
I checked in with my beliefs and values to map out what had been hit and think about why.
I cross referenced my saboteurs and considered what behaviours and needs might be at play here (my top three are Restless, Controller and Hyper-Achiever). Take the Positive Intelligence assessment by the way, even if it’s to distract you for a few minutes 😜
I considered what the other persons perspective might be and what might be driving that.
Lastly, yes, lastly! I considered what might be going on for the other person and if there were actually good intentions behind the comment. Two angles to explore here: 1. What about my communication style might not be aligned with their preferred style and what could be done about it. 2. What might be going on for them that caused them to escalate something which they would have normally just picked up the phone to talk through with me?
By the time I had been through this process I was ready to put it to bed. I was ready to book that call and have a conversation with my fri-enemy ;-) And, I was in a much better head space for doing the steps listed above. This meant that the conversation wasn’t fraught, it wasn’t an escalation of my emotions and frustrations as I had already dealt with them. The conversation was respectful and objective.
As it turns out, the other person was feeling, let’s say, pretty overwhelmed and stressed. Rather than feeling like collateral damage and getting myself worked up again, I saw this as an opportunity to extend an olive branch, to do a little coaching and to find a way forward that satisfied both our needs. Did the other person have ‘good intentions’? Well, they wanted to improve the information they were getting – good intention. Could they have achieved that a million other ways? FOR SURE! And that’s okay. But their decision to ‘report’ me was far more about what was going on for them and far less about me, and I’m okay with that.
So see ‘good intentions’ for what it is; A tool that can be useful if it helps you to process, to find some peace and to explore what else might be going on. But, to come full circle here, if someone is being a total tosspot and you have truly given the altercation a thorough post-mortem, then you have every right to move on without the need to give ‘good intentions’ an outing at all.
Chat soon,
Claire x