“Assume capability, not intent,” is part of a military maxim used in intelligence. While somewhat more arcane when employed in intelligence, its shortened form can serve as an effective and simple reminder of how to approach those with whom we interact in the business world.
Have you ever sat in a meeting and watched the people around the table and started writing your own narrative about them? Your thoughts range from:
“He doesn’t care,” you say about one person.
“She has an agenda she’s trying to push,” you smugly say to yourself about another.
And then there is the inevitable, “He’s lazy and doesn’t want to get the job done.”
What’s the common denominator of such narratives? They are all judgment based and blindly come to conclusions about the intent of each individual, based on nothing more than opinion and feelings. As such they do nothing to enhance our personal and professional relationships and thus materially contribute to distrust, making them detrimental to how a team operates.
