Lesson for presuming the best in colleagues motives. So we're still going through our observable bits of behavior that we're looking for if we want a culture of respect between our team members. Another area that I'd like us to discuss now is not jumping to negative conclusions about bad motives, but assuming good ones. So this is perhaps a bit unusual. You might not have thought of this before. But I want to talk to you about something called charity.

And I'd like to talk to you about another meaning of the word so when we think about charity, we normally think about giving to good causes. But charity can also mean something slightly different. It can mean kindness and tolerance in judging others assuming positive motives, and not imputing bad motives. And that's the sense of charity that I'd like to talk to you when we talk about respect for each other. So when you hear somebody saying this? Well, I think it was the wrong choice.

But he had the right intentions. What does that say to you? So to me that says, this individual is assuming the person had good motives, although it actually didn't work. He's always looking to improve things. So although the end result might not have been an improvement, this individual is assuming that the reason they did it that way, is because they wanted to improve. The might be something good in that, although it didn't turn out quite right.

So they're looking for the positives, and they're assuming that the person was trying to do it for the right reason. So let's have a look at some possible positive motives and what might happen as a negative outcome. So we might have somebody who's really trying to get the job done on time. Now a negative outcome might be that they might rush and make a mistake. Trying to make the customer happy, could end up making it difficult to fulfill the order because we've over promised. Trying to do it more cost effectively could mean that we're unable to fulfill the quality requirements.

Trying to do it to a high quality standard could mean that we're unable to do it cost effectively. So hopefully you get the point. That if you look at the elements in red, we could think about an individual who's rushed that made a mistake. Or they've made it very difficult for the team to fulfill an order. Or they've been unable to fulfill the quality requirements or they've not been able to do it at a profit, not do it cost effectively. Now, it will be easy for us to assume that they done these things because they were stupid or because they had bad motives.

But actually, we can easily see that there's some really good motives that also could have been behind some of the decisions that were made. Unfortunately, the outcome wasn't right. But the motives were good. What's the opposite of charity? Well, the opposite is to believe that there's a malevolent agenda. Oh, that team members are trying to hurt you in some way.

This is more evidence that she doesn't care about. Anyone else? So can you see the difference in the two approaches, on the one hand, we're assuming good motives, on the other, we're assuming negative ones. And that's gonna have an impact on the way we feel about that individual, and the way we communicate them about what they've just done. So it'd be good to encourage a spirit of charity within our team. What's the basis of all of this stuff?

Well, there's a couple of phenomena that I want to share with you, their psychological phenomenon, and they're called the fundamental attribution error, called the FAA. And self serving bias. Now, these two tendencies that human beings have are pretty much universal. And they're relevant to this discussion around respect. So it's a natural psychological tendency that I'm pointing out to you right now. And that if we want that To encourage this charitable feeling between people we've got to try and overcome.

So let's start with the fundamental attribution error or FAA. This is where we attribute personality faults and internal reasons for any failure. So if an individual fails at something, then the FAA will tend to say, well, it's their fault because of something that's wrong with them. So let's give you an example. A colleague fails to get a report to you on time. So you've got to have this report.

They don't get it to you on time. Your initial response is likely to be something like that's typical of their laziness. So they couldn't be bothered. They were too lazy. We blame a personality fault on the fact that they didn't get that report was on time. Now, the fan But it's the fundamental attribution error suggests that actually, it's often not fair to make that assumption.

But nevertheless, that's what we do. However, what's interesting is when we turn the tables, we don't take such a hotline strangely. So you fail to get a report to your colleague on time. Your responses? Well, it wasn't my fault. Unfortunately, I just ran out of time, I couldn't help it.

So now you're attributing external reasons for the failure. There's no underlying issue here. So it's not really my fault. It's not down to personality flaw. It's just the situation. It's the external situation, and that's known as the self serving bias.

So we have these two phenomena one, on the one hand, we have the fundamental attribution error where we tend to decide that if somebody does something wrong, it's because of a fault with them. If we do something wrong, it's because of the situation. So we have these biases, which tend to makers feel animosity towards the other individual. We're trying to fight against that a little bit. Okay, so at this point, I'd like to tell you a story that happened to me when I was working for a client. I won't go into all the details, but basically, there was a machine in the factory that was well, causing quite a lot of issues.

The individuals, the operators in the factory, didn't like this new machine. It was implemented without their knowledge really, it suddenly one morning there it was, they were having to use it. They didn't feel like they've been trained properly. They felt it was And particularly safe. They were very, very unhappy about it. Now this, this was causing quite a lot of dangerous behavior.

So people were behaving quite dangerously around this equipment because there were so frustrated and angry that we're jumping over things to sort things out and it was all it was all very aggressive and very angry that this was causing problems between the operators and the team leaders and the senior management team. We got them together. And one of the things that came out of the discussion where we got the the operators and the team leaders and the senior management team, we all got them together, we had a discussion. One thing that came out was it was believed that actually the reason for putting this new equipment in wasn't to help them do their job more effectively. It was all kind of some arrangement between some individuals that was doing somebody a favor, and it actually wasn't helping them at all. So the motive was seen as a bad motive.

It wasn't To help improve the process, it was to help somebody else in some roundabout way. Through the discussion, we started to identify the actually the positive motives behind the implementation of this equipment. While it was acknowledged that there, the way it was done was actually not very good, and could have been done better, and that there were issues with it, and they need to be addressed, the motives behind putting it in was actually to try and increase efficient production of what was happening in that factory. Now, whilst it didn't suddenly change everything, it did make a big difference because we could start from a different place, then we could start from the place that said, Okay, so what can we do to improve this? We can all assume that everybody's got the right motives. senior team want to do things more efficiently.

The operators want to operate the machinery. Okay, let's forget about it. motives, let's assume everybody's doing it for the right reasons, we can now move on to how we can improve the situation. That made a big difference. The rest of the conversation was much more respectful, were much more able to get a resolution, which we did. And the individuals within the team are able to work together to find a solution to the issue.

So really, it all started from this belief that the senior management team had bad motives. As soon as we got rid of that, we were able to see our way through to a solution. Okay, so without getting political. I just tried to put this forward this idea Imagine if we all started from a place where we always assumed good motives in each other. You know, we use that presumed innocent until proven guilty. Imagine if we did just that.

Or even better assume that the stance that somebody is taking is actually trying to achieve something good. It's for the right reason, even if we don't agree with the policy or what's being done, and if we started from that place, probably be able to get a little better. So you can see the plane landing. But I want to talk about attitude. So attitude is a word that's actually used by pilots. And it actually means in this context, our approach, our stance, our inclination, our orientation, and position.

So let's watch this plane landing again. So what can you say about the attitude, the orientation, the inclination, the position of the plane, what's the problem? So clearly, the planes attitude is not correct, it's going to crash if it takes that approach. Similarly, this is also the wrong attitude is the wrong orientation or approach, it's going to end in disaster. So actually, there's a very specific attitude. There's a very clear measurement that's required when a pilot is coming to land their plane.

And they need to make sure that the nose is in the right position for the plane to land safely. The same goes for us. Our attitude needs to be correct. So when it comes to charity, and attitude, how can we influence our team members? Well, again, we have to say your example is very important here. I'm going to assume that my team are doing things for the right reasons, I'm gonna make that assumption.

One, use the workshops we discussed earlier, when you were looking at people's profiles and the differences between people use that to talk about motives and identify the good motives that might be coming from those individuals. Why not also use the workshop to educate about the FAA, the fundamental attribution error and the self serving bias. The thing about these two types of biases is that knowledge actually reduces the amount of bias that people show so just knowing that there are those things, reduces the power of those biases. Okay, so I can imagine some of you now sitting there thinking, Oh, Steven, you're so naive, you know, people often do have bad motives. outcomes matter. adherence to the process still matters, how a team needs to continually improve.

We still need to measure performance. We still provide feedback when team members do not meet the required standards. So we're not saying here that it doesn't matter what people do, and that we always just pat people on the back and said, Yes, I know you tried. That's not what we're saying. We know that people still need to do the right things. We still need results.

So this is not naivety or an excuse for poor performance. We still need to hit those targets. But all we're saying is we're just assuming motives. You can see outcomes you can measure outcomes, but you can only assume motives. So why not assume good ones? This has the effect of taking away the accelerant that stoke the fires of anxiety of judging and being judged.

It also allows you the fact that sometimes Sure, people may have bad motives. But from a team cohesion perspective and a respect perspective, we always start with the assumption of good motives.