Who Will You Give the Benefit of the Doubt?

Mind Tools Newsletter 86 - Oct 30th, 2007 This newsletter is published by Mind Tools Ltd of 2nd Floor, 145-157 St John Street, London, EC1V 4PY, UK. You have received it because you have subscribed to our double opt-in newsletter. To subscribe or unsubscribe, just click the links at the bottom of this email.

Contents: What’s New? The Benefit of the Doubt Mind Tools Store A Final Note

When you make a mistake, do people give you the benefit of the doubt? And how do people treat you when you do something or say something that upsets or disappoints them?

Life can be full of mishaps and disappointments, and if we don't give each other the benefit of the doubt, our experience can become a very negative one.

This week's article focuses on this issue, and gives you practical tools that can help you give other people the benefit of the doubt. By doing so, you can help yourself, and others, stay so much more positive.

The article is taken from our Coaching Clinic series in the Mind Tools Career Excellence Club, supported by resident Career and Life Coach, Sharon Juden. We hope you enjoy this insight into the Club!

What's New?

The new articles on the Mind Tools site teach Porter's Generic Strategies and help you "Re-Interview" for Your Own Job. The former is a classic strategy tool that helps you think about how you'll compete in your industry, whilst the latter addresses the difficult issue of organization restructuring, when you might find yourself needing to re-interview for a role in the new organization. Click the links above to find out more!

As well as our regular Coaching Clinic from Sharon Juden, Club members have been learning how to sell their ideas: Selling skills are an essential part of almost any job, and certainly not just in the preserve of the Sales Department! There's also an excellent Book Insight on why "Telling Ain't Training". To learn more about the Club and recent new members' resources, click here.)

Enjoy this issue!

James & Rachel

James Manktelow and Rachel Thompson
MindTools.com
Mind Tools – Essential skills for an excellent career!

To find out about new tools on the Mind Tools site the moment they’re uploaded, click here to subscribe to the Mind Tools RSS feed (you'll need an RSS newsreader installed), or here to find out more about RSS.

New Article
The Benefit of The Doubt
A Coaching Clinic with Sharon Juden

How many times have you been so preoccupied with your own thoughts that, when someone speaks to you, you either ignore them or give an abrupt reply? And how many times have you been rushing somewhere and driven your car impatiently as a result, cutting people up or driving too close to their tail? Did you mean to be rude, thoughtless, and even a bit dangerous? Of course not!

You know you're not any of those things. But people don't always give us the benefit of the doubt. They may well imagine you to be insensitive and bad mannered – or worse.

Since we can't change others, but we can change ourselves, let's think about what happens when we give someone the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps we could be more understanding and make a greater effort to assume that people's negative behavior is the result of something we don't know about. There is benefit to ourselves and the other person when we give the benefit of the doubt!

Other People's Shoes

I read a story once about a man traveling on a train. He was trying to read but there were two young children who kept running up and down the aisle beside him making lots of noise. He tolerated it for as long as he could, but eventually got so angry with them that he confronted their father: The father was completely ignoring them and seemed distracted. The angry man demanded to know how the father could sit there listening to his children shouting and not do anything about it. The father turned to him, clearly deeply upset, and apologized. He replied that his wife had died a few days earlier and he hadn't the heart to tell his children to sit down and be quiet.

Not all situations can be excused so easily, but perhaps we should take heed of the saying: "Never judge a person until you've walked a mile in their shoes": So let's look at what's behind the way we react to other people, and see how we might change that.

What Are Our Expectations?

One of the key drivers of how people react to others is their expectations of how things should be, and how people should behave. Sometimes, however, people set such high expectations and "rules that must be obeyed" that other people just can't live up to the mark.

Why do they do this? Often it's about setting boundaries to live within, which makes life feel safer and more predictable. However, when someone else dares to break those rules, the "rule-setter" may be left feeling uncomfortable, irritated, angry, or even frightened. Interestingly, this reaction can say much more about the rule setter than it does about the person breaking the rules.

A Positive Approach in Practice

In order assume positive intentions and give other people the benefit of the doubt, we need to shift our mind set and change our habits. We need to train ourselves to set realistic expectations of other people, and assume that they did not set out with the express intention of upsetting us.

It takes patience and practice to do this, however the rewards are worth it – you'll almost certainly feel a whole lot more positive in your outlook and relationships with others.

Here are some practical tips to practice, to help you make the change…

1. Think of situations where other people upset you or make you feel stressed. Make a list of things that do this, whether at work or at home. For each situation, think about what your expectations are. Are they realistic? Or can you let go of your old expectations, and see others "with new eyes"?

2. Remind yourself each day to stop before judging other people too harshly, or taking their actions or comments to heart. Train yourself to give the benefit of the doubt by considering other people's situation, before jumping to a negative conclusion.

3. Learn new language for the disappointments and upsets that are part of everyday life. Keep them in context and reduce the negativity of your reaction. The late report from a colleague is not "a disaster – he obviously wants to make me look bad". It's simply "an inconvenience": And assuming a positive intention, you might help a colleague who's struggling, as well as avoid the negative feeling that go with the earlier response.

Give it a try – Give the benefit of the doubt, and enjoy the benefit for you and other people around you!
 

This article by Sharon Juden, Mind Tools Career and Life Coach, is taken from here regular series of Coaching Clinics in the Mind Tools Excellence Club. To find out more about the Club and the range of resources enjoyed by members, you can now take a tour of the Club, click here.

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The Mind Tools Store:

• The Career Excellence Club (The Mind Tools members' area): Make career development an every-day part of your life with member-only discussion forums, the Mind Tools Extended Toolkit, downloadable MP3-based Book Insights and Interviews, regular coaching clinics, training, and much, much more. More >>
  
  
• How to Lead: Discover the Leader Within You: Learn the 48 simple but essential skills you need to become a top leader in your industry. More >>
  
  
• Personal Coaching from Career Excellence Professionals: Find career and life direction, bring your job under control, build self-confidence and put yourself on the path to long term success with a Mind Tools coach. Our coaches give you the focused personal coaching you need to make the very most of your career and life.More >>

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A Final Note from James

So, in the week ahead, who will you give the benefit of the doubt? It really can be quite liberating to do this! And don't forget to catch up on the regular new articles at the site too: Porter's Generic Strategies and "Re-Interview" for Your Own Job.

Our next newsletter will be with you in two weeks time, with new articles on egos and influence maps. Curious about those? I hope so – you'll love the articles!

Until then, I wish you an excellent two weeks!

James

James Manktelow

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