Don’t Assume Positive Intent
You know what they say when you assume…
My neighbors hate each other.
I live in a homeowners’ association with a few hundred houses. I didn’t choose the community; I married into it. This gives me an objective perspective on the neighborhood dynamics. I can see multiple sides of the drama without being emotionally invested.
It’s a charming place. Homes are decorated for holidays, kids play outside, yard sales pop up on weekends, and laughter echoes from the pool in the summer. And still, tension runs deep.
Everyone is polite in passing. Pass someone on the street and you’ll get a head nod or a raised hand, as though they were about to take an oath. But those gestures rarely carry over into deeper interactions. Proximity seems to be an important indicator of how much you are trusted.
People love the neighbors immediately surrounding their home. They’re on a first-name basis, collect each other’s mail when traveling, and offer help when there’s a problem. Frequently, they linger in their driveways after exiting their car, ready to dish the neighborhood gossip.
As much as people love their next-door neighbors, they’re highly suspicious of those who live a few blocks away. Because they don’t know their names, they default to coded descriptions like, “You know…the lady with the overgrown yard,” or “The guy with seven cars parked in his driveway. My favorite is “The lady with the gnome in her yard,” or “Gnome lady” for short.
Residents fall into three categories. First, the engaged ones: they attend every board meeting, compliment your lawn, and pick up random litter. Then there are the ranters: those who camp out on websites like Facebook and Nextdoor, complaining about the community. They leave notes in your mailbox about a hedge that needs trimming or siding that needs cleaning. The rest are the silent majority: neutral, supportive, and uninterested in the bickering.
A few years ago, Gnome Lady started her own Facebook group. It was unofficial since the board didn’t have one. Multiple times a week, she posts rants, blaming the board for spending money ahead of the budget schedule. One in five posts is helpful; the rest are exhausting.
The board is frustrated with her. She assumes their every move cheats homeowners out of money or amenities. They often respond, “Please assume positive intent,” but it rarely works. Ironically, they aren’t willing to extend positive intent towards her. They’re stuck in this cycle with neither side trusting the other.
Don’t Assume Positive Intent
“Assume positive intent” is terrible advice, especially at work. It glosses over events and doesn’t work. You’re cheated out of information and understanding that can help in the future.
We’re always more generous with ourselves than others because we know the context of our actions. But we lack that for others. When we make assumptions, we miss key details, create a story that includes bias, and get it wrong.
In Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most, Stone, Patton, and Heen explain that we judge ourselves by intent and others by impact. Who intends what is central to our story. They describe the two big mistakes we make with intent:
We’re often wrong about others’ intentions.
Good intentions don’t erase a harmful impact.
We Judge Ourselves by Intent, Others by Impact
If you feel hurt, it’s easy to believe someone meant to hurt you—even when that’s not true. Our assumptions are often wrong. We justify our intent because we have the context. But when you’re the one impacted, you lack that context and focus on how the experience feels.
We rarely extend the same compassion to others that we grant ourselves. If you’re a day late in sending a document, you excuse it because you were late due to car issues. But if a coworker is late, they’re careless and don’t care how the delay impacts you. Once we assume bad intent, we quickly question their character, especially in heated moments. When you cut someone off in traffic because you’re hurrying to get to a friend with an emergency, it’s ok. When another driver cuts you off, they’re a jerk. This is how bias and stereotypes form.
As the authors write, “We are so taken by our story about what they intended that we can’t imagine how they could have intended anything else.” Add most communication happening via text or email, and it’s no wonder we misread each other.
“That Wasn’t my Intent!” Doesn’t Cancel Out Impact
Most people don’t set out to cause harm, but that doesn’t erase how their actions land. When you say, “That wasn’t my intent,” it’s often a defensive move, meant to shut down hurt rather than understand it. As Sarah Noll Wilson, the author of “Don’t Feed The Elephants,” says, “We don’t get to decide what our impact was—only the other person does.”
If you stop at “That wasn’t my intent! Always assume positive intent,” you lose a chance to learn key information and context. It’s natural to feel defensive, but focusing solely on your motives shuts down the other person’s experience. You miss what they’re trying to tell you: “That negatively impacted or hurt me,” or “You’re missing an important part of the story.”
Assume You Don’t Know
Assuming positive intent makes people fill in the blanks with bias and guesswork. A better approach?
Assume you don’t have the full story.
Assume you don't know everything important to know. Make an effort to learn what you don't know as soon as you are able.
Get curious, ask questions, and seek understanding and context, particularly of perspectives you hadn’t considered. Be open to learning new information that can help improve the situation.
Conversation Prompts:
What’s something I might not see from my perspective?
How do you think I might be seeing this differently?
Can you walk me through how you see it?
What would help you feel more understood right now?
What’s the hardest part of this for you?
What matters most to you in this situation?
What do you wish I understood better?
What is something that may be difficult for me to hear but important for me to hear?
What could I have asked instead of assuming?
What do you hope happens next?
Two months ago, the HOA held elections for a new board. Gnome Lady was among the candidates. She created a one-page introduction to share with the community, highlighting her background as a paralegal and her strength in quickly researching bylaws, rules, and ordinances. She explained that she wanted to use those skills to help residents maximize the benefits available to them.
She didn’t win the election, but something surprising happened: the tone toward her softened. With new context, residents began to understand the intent behind her posts. She was no longer seen as a troublemaker, but as someone deeply invested in the neighborhood. The board began asking her to share insights on ordinances and county rulings. The shift didn’t require her to change who she was, just for others to learn more of the context of her story. That changed everything.
