Chapter 7 Chapter 3: Don’t Set the Other Party’s Intent: Let Conflict Have Nothing to Do with Intent

Once we are in an awkward or difficult situation, when the facts are presented, the topic of whose intentions and what becomes the core content of the counterargument of both sides of the story.Intent, or purpose, greatly influences our judgment: if someone intends to hurt us, we tend to treat him much harsher than someone who hurt us unintentionally or by accident.When faced with the trouble or inconvenience caused by others, we are usually willing to understand and accept if they can give a reasonable reason, but if we think that they have no regard for how their actions will cause us influence, then we are more likely to be annoyed or blamed on them for it.Even though the outcome is the same in both cases, our responses are as different as we are to an ambulance on a narrow two-lane road than we are to a BMW.

Let's take a look at the story of Lori and Leo first.Lori and Leo have been dating for two years, and during that time, they have been arguing over the same issue, which has caused both parties to feel very painful. At a dance party organized by a friend, when Lori was about to scoop another scoop of ice cream, Leo saw this and said, Loli, why can't you restrain yourself and stay away from the ice cream? "Lou Li, who was struggling with her weight problem at the time, didn't say anything, but gave Leo a hard look. After that, the two kept avoiding each other deliberately at the dance. On that night Later on, things got worse:

After this conversation, both Lori and Leo felt very angry. They both felt that the other party had misunderstood their intentions and hurt themselves.What's worse, they keep bickering over this topic all the time. In fact, Lori and Leo are just caught in a typical war of intentions: Loli thinks Leo hurt her on purpose, and Leo vehemently denies it.It's like they're stuck in a vicious cycle that they don't understand and don't know how to break out of. For Lori and Leo, there is one way out of the vicious circle.In fact, the problem was not so serious and complicated in the first place. It was their own two crucial mistakes that made the difficulty of this conversation infinitely exacerbated-Loli and Leo made one mistake each.When Lori said, "You just want to hold me tight and hit me," she was talking about Leo's intentions.And her mistake was in assuming she knew what Leo's intentions were, when in fact she didn't.It's an easy -- and deadly -- mistake to make.We often make this mistake.

As for Leo, his mistake was that he thought that every time he tried to explain his intentions to Lori and tell her that he meant well, she always tried to contradict him.He explained to her that he "didn't want to hurt" Lori, he just wanted to help her.When he had explained all this, he thought it should be over.As a result, he simply doesn't take the time to understand how Lori really feels or why.Just as things are not always perfect, so too often we make this mistake.Fortunately, as long as we pay a little attention, we can completely avoid these two mistakes. Before analyzing "Lolita's Mistakes", we first need to figure out how our minds need to operate to construct assumptions about the other party's intentions. Secondly, we also need to practice a pair of sharp eyes. Identify dubious assumptions among the story's many assumptions.And so the problem arises: while we care deeply and care deeply about what other people intend for us, we don't know what their true intentions are.In fact, we have no way of knowing.How can we know other people's intentions when they are only in their heads and hearts?However correct and real our assumptions about the other person's intentions may seem to us, they are incomplete or simply wrong assumptions.

The vast majority of Type 1 errors boil down to one basic error: We make assumptions about the other person's intentions based on how their behavior affects us.We feel hurt, so we think they want to hurt us.We feel left out, so we say they are snubbing or belittling us.Our conclusions come so quickly that we don't even realize that our conclusions are really just hypotheses.We are completely immersed in the stories we have drawn, and we completely believe in the intentions of the other party described in the stories, so that it never occurs to us that they may actually have other intentions.

When we draw conclusions based on how the other person's actions affect us, we are rarely magnanimous.When we have a movie appointment with a friend and he's late, we're more likely to think it's "than I bet he's running into someone who needs help and that's why he's late." It's annoying, he doesn't care that I won't see the beginning of the movie because of it."When we are hurt by someone's actions, we usually assume the worst. That was the case with Margaret.She had just undergone a hip operation, and the doctor who performed the operation on her was highly skilled, but he was very indifferent to the patient, and he was also a difficult person to communicate with.After the operation, when Margaret limped back to the hospital for her first follow-up visit, she was told that the doctor had suddenly extended her leave and was still on leave.Upon hearing this news, Margaret was very angry. She imagined that the rich doctor was wandering in the Caribbean Sea with his wife or girlfriend at this very moment. Hospital.Thinking of this, Margaret couldn't help being even more angry.

When Margaret finally saw the doctor a week later, she asked him offhand how his vacation was going.Who knows, he actually replied that it was great. "I bet!" she said, wondering if she should speak her mind, but the doctor ignored her and went on to say that I, too, was on vacation while working.I'm building a hospital in Bosnia.The medical conditions there are really bad. " After knowing the real situation of the doctor's vacation, although Margaret's experience of not meeting the doctor for the follow-up appointment will not be rewritten, but when she knows that the doctor's missed appointment is not because of his selfishness and arrogance, but because of an accident with the doctor. Margaret, who had been brooding about waiting an extra week, was relieved when his own unrelated good deeds came about.

We always place the blame for things on the other person's intentions.With the continuous improvement of information technology in work and life, when communicating with others-whether in business or personal relationships-we use email, voice mail, fax and conference calls more and more frequently. Therefore, we often have to read the information carefully, think and feel the true meaning contained in the lines.If a customer writes "I'm not saying you've got my order..." you might wonder, is he trying to be sarcastic?Or is he angry?Or is he trying to tell you he knows you're busy?Without the help and guidance of tone of voice, it's easy to assume the worst.

On the one hand, we tend to attribute our faults to the intentions of others with a harsh attitude, while on the other hand, when dealing with ourselves, we choose another measure and method of treatment.If your husband forgets to pick up the laundry from the dry cleaner, you think it's his irresponsibility; but when you forget to book your flight, you say it's because you're overworked and stressed out. reason.When a colleague criticizes you in front of the entire department, you will feel that she is deliberately trying to hurt you; and in the same meeting, if you are making comments to others, then you will feel that you are being a critic. helping each other.

When we play the role of actors, we know that many times we don't want to annoy, violate, or slight the other person.We use our worries and thinking as a shield to excuse ourselves, without realizing that our actions have actually had a negative impact on others.However, in turn, when we act as recipients, we unconsciously tend to be protective and make bad assumptions and judgments about others. Are there bad intentions?Of course, sometimes we do get hurt because of someone's will.We meet all kinds of people, some of whom are obnoxious, or who are inconsiderate, deliberately embarrassing us, or who steal our best friends inappropriately.It's just that such situations are much rarer than we imagined, and we can't understand their true intentions without listening to the other party's description.

Intentions are important and critical, and a wrong guess can jeopardize your relationships with others. We believe that behind the bad intentions is the bad character of people.So perhaps the greatest danger of falsely assuming that others have bad intentions toward us is that we naturally associate the idea of ​​"they have bad intentions" with "they're not good people."Our judgments of other people's character, which color our judgments of them personally, affect not only our conversations, but our relations with them as well.Once we think that we have seen through someone's mind, when we judge his behavior, we will inevitably put on this pair of colored glasses unconsciously, and a crisis will ensue.Even if we do not express our opinion about him, the influence of this opinion will not disappear.The worse we think of someone as a character, the more likely we are to avoid him, and the more likely we are to speak ill of him behind his back. Whenever you catch yourself thinking, "The traffic cops want to control everyone," or "My boss is too controlling," or "My neighbors can't communicate," ask yourself: Why? Would I generate such a view?What facts are these views based on?If you are thinking this way out of a feeling of powerlessness, fear of being manipulated, or failure of your plan, beware: your conclusions are based on how the other person's actions have affected you— In fact, these facts are not enough to help you to falsely accuse others of bad intentions can stoke our defenses.Our assumptions about other people's intentions also directly affect our conversations.Asking the other person is the easiest and most common way to express this assumption. Why do you want to hurt me?Why do you ignore me so much?What did I do that made you think you could just ignore me like this without caring about my feelings? " We believe that by doing so, we can let the other person understand our hurt, our loss, anger, and confusion.We try to do this so that at the end of the conversation, both parties can reach more understanding, maybe correcting our own inappropriate behavior, maybe apologizing to the other party for our mistakes.However, the other party may think that what we have done is accusing or slandering them and trying to provoke a bigger dispute. (In other words, they, like us, make one-sided mistakes when judging our intentions.) In addition, our assumptions are often one-sided and incomplete, and some are even wrong, so the other party will be more and more likely to It should come as no surprise to feel that you are not only being blamed, but unjustly blamed.There is hardly anything in the world more infuriating than that. Therefore, we should not be surprised to face the defense, or confrontation, from the other side.From their point of view, there is nothing wrong with them defending themselves in the face of those false accusations. This is an act of self-defense—we are not wrong. There is no point in talking about it at all.In this way, the result of the conversation can only be a mess.No one can understand the other party's true thoughts from the conversation, let alone apologize, everything is the same as before the conversation, or even worse. That's exactly what's wrong with Lori and Leo.Leo is defending himself throughout, and at the end, when he says he sometimes even wonders if Lori is "deliberately trying to stir up these fights between them", he's made it pretty clear that he's not treating Lori well intentional accusation.And that will only add fuel to the fire, leading to another round of finger-pointing.Later, when they reflect on the conversation, both Lori and Leo will feel that they were the victims of the other's alleged bad intentions.They will think that they said those words out of self-defense.In fact, these are the two typical characteristics of this vicious circle conversation - both parties think that they are the victims, and at the same time, both parties also think that their words are just a way for themselves in the face of inappropriate accusations. kind of defense.In other words, this is what we often say about doing bad things with good intentions: the intention is good, but the result is getting yourself into trouble. Blaming can become a unilateral act.Our assumptions about other people's intentions, even though they may initially be false and untrue, often end up being true.You think your boss doesn't give you enough tasks at work.With that, you make the assumption that she doesn't trust you, that she doesn't believe in your ability to do a good job.In this way, you lose the motivation to work hard and always feel that no matter what you do, you can't change the boss's opinion of you.Gradually, your work began to have problems, and at this time, the boss who did not pay attention to your work began to worry about your work status.As a result, she has fewer work tasks assigned to you. When we think others have bad intentions for us, this belief directly affects our behavior.As a result, our behavior affects the attitude and the way the other party treats us.And so, our assumptions about the other person's bad intentions unknowingly become reality. As we've seen, Rory makes the mistake of thinking she knows Leo's intentions, a seemingly small mistake with serious consequences.Now, let's turn the conversation back to Leo, who also paid dearly for his mistakes during the conversation.He thought that since his intentions were good, Lori would not be hurt by it.His idea is that you say that I intend to hurt you.Now, I've made it clear, I don't want to hurt you.So, you should be feeling better by now, if not, it's your fault. " They really want to say it, and we won't listen.If we only focus on explaining our own meaning clearly, it will not help the problem at all, because we will miss important parts of what the other person has to say. "When they say 'why are you hurting me', what they're really trying to convey are two separate messages: one, 'I know what you want to do' and two, 'I'm hurting'." If we were the one making the accusations, we would only focus on the first piece of information and ignore the second.Why?Because we feel the need to act in self-defense.Because Leo was so focused on defending himself, he never heard Lori's statement about her injuries.He didn't realize what it all meant to her, how deeply she was hurt, and why these things caused her so much pain. At this time, it is very important to try to understand the content of the other party's statement and its true meaning, because when someone says "you deliberately wanted to hurt me", that is not what they really mean.Obsessing over the literal meaning will only deepen the confusion on both sides, and let the conversation end in confusion.Usually, when we say "You deliberately want to hurt me," what we really mean is "You don't care enough about me."This is the difference between literal meaning and real meaning, and it is also a very important difference. The father was too busy to attend his son's basketball game, and he didn't want his son to get injured.If he had a choice, he obviously didn't want his son to be hurt.However, his desire not to hurt his son was a secondary concern to his desire to work, or the necessity of it.As recipients of other people's actions, most of us can't tell the difference between "he wants to hurt me" and "he doesn't want to hurt me but doesn't prioritize me."Whether it's the former or the latter, "I" is hurt.If a father simply responds with "I didn't mean to hurt you" when he heard his son's complaint, he didn't realize that the core of his son's concern was "You may not want to hurt me, but you know that your behavior has hurt me." Me, it's a fact." It's helpful to explain your intentions clearly to the other person, but the question is when is the right time.If you are eager to explain at the beginning of the conversation, at this time, you have not yet understood what the other party wants to express, so the role of explanation may be half the result, or even negligible. Another problem with the idea that good intentions and bad influences can cancel each other out is that human intentions are often complex and cannot be distinguished simply by "good" or "bad".Are Leo's ideas really that simple and beautiful?Did he really just want to help Lori stick to her diet?It's quite possible that he himself was a little embarrassed by Lori's tendency to overeat and felt compelled to say something to stop her.Or, he hoped that she could lose weight for him, not just for herself.If he really cared about her as much as he said, shouldn't he be more aware of the negative impact his words would have on her? Things are often like this, Leo's original intentions may be very complicated, and even he himself may not clearly know what his motives are.However, the extent to which Leo is willing to ask questions and seek answers is far more important than the question of what his true motives are.Facing Lori's questioning, if his first reaction is to say no, I mean well. Then, the communication barrier appeared, so while blocking the information that might be obtained through the conversation, he also conveyed his intention to Lori, "For me, I am more concerned about defending myself , rather than exploring the complexities of any situation that might arise between the two of us. " Interestingly, when people start to seriously think about their intentions or intentions, this practice will instead send a very positive message to the other party that is very conducive to resolving conflicts-you value the relationship with the other party.After all, it's only when you're dealing with people who you think are important that you take the time and energy to think about it. When we are in groups—that includes colleagues and managers at work, as well as the developers, executives, and professional work teams they support, and even me and your family—the above-mentioned This series of confrontational postures, such as the intention to blame and blame the other party, self-justification, and ignoring the impact of one's actions on others, become more common and prominent.In situations where "difference," or "divergence," is involved, such as race, gender, or sexual orientation, it's not uncommon for people to try to counteract the implications with justification. A few years ago, an American newspaper experienced an internal struggle among employees over racial issues.African-American and Hispanic journalists complained that too few editorials reflected the views and voices of racial minorities, and they threatened the newspaper with a boycott if it did not act to change the situation.In this regard, the senior editors of the newspaper held a secret meeting to discuss countermeasures.No minority employees were invited to the meeting.When the minority journalists learned of the news, they immediately became furious, and the newspaper immediately exploded. "Once again they showed us with their actions: they don't care what we say," one of the reporters said. When a white editor heard about it, she felt unfairly blamed and tried to explain the purpose of the meeting: “I understand why you feel excluded. That’s not what we meant. This is just an ordinary meeting held by the editors to discuss a good solution, the purpose is to allow more views and voices from ethnic minorities to be fully reflected and expressed in a timely manner.” The white editor believes that since She has explained the purpose of the meeting very clearly, and any debate and doubts about the "meeting intention" should be settled there.After all, everything has been made public and made clear, but things are never as simple as people think.The intentions of white editors certainly matter, but so does the fact that their actions already make others feel excluded, whether or not they want to exclude others.And for everyone, it takes time and thought to accept, digest and forget the feeling. What can be done to stop Lori from wrongly ascribing the blame to Leo's possible "unwarranted" intentions?First, she needs to recognize that there is a difference between how Leo's actions affect her and what Leo intended.She couldn't really resolve the contradiction if she couldn't free her speculations about Leo's intentions from the subtleties of her own influence. To free our assumptions about other people's intentions from being disturbed by our own influence, we must realize that after we feel "I'm hurt," we automatically translate that feeling into "you meant to hurt me." class assumptions.You can figure out the difference between the two by asking yourself these three questions: First, action: "What did the other party actually say or do?" Second, impact: "What impact did his words and actions have on me?" Third, assumptions: "What assumptions am I making about his intentions on the basis of this influence?" Think of your opinion as a hypothesis.After you have clearly answered the above three questions, the next step is to determine whether you clearly know that your assumptions about their intentions are only assumptions.It was a guess, an assumption. Your assumptions have no basis in fact; all you know is what happened and what the other person said.However, as we have seen in the previous examples, this evidence is not enough to provide sufficient support for your hypothesis.You may be right or wrong in your guesses, and in fact, your reaction may be to spout things about yourself and the other person's words and actions.At the same time, your past experience may "tell your own story", allowing you to unconsciously attach a specific meaning to the other party's actions.For example, some people find some teasing and teasing to be inappropriate because of some unpleasant experiences they have had with their siblings, while others see (appropriate) teasing and teasing as a form of communication One of the ways of feeling.Even so, though, you can't afford to fall for these unsubstantiated accusations. Inform the other person of how you are affected; ask and understand their intentions.You can start a tough conversation with the answers to the three questions above: tell them what they did, tell them how it affected you, and explain the assumptions you made about their intentions because of it, but, Regarding the last item, you have to remember to make it clear that this is just a hypothesis you want to test, not a fact you have confirmed. Now, let's think about it, how would such an opening change the conversation between Lori and Leo?Lori can start their conversation by confirming Leo's words and how they affect her, instead of asking each other directly at the beginning like before: The conversation has only just begun, but this time the results are sure to be better than last time. Note that we are not suggesting that you should be as free as possible from assumptions about other people's intentions. This is unrealistic.Likewise, we do not recommend that you hide your views.Instead, we suggest that you should recognize and admit your assumptions—just treat them as a guess, one that can be revised or refuted.Lori doesn't say "I didn't think about why you said that" or "I know you didn't mean to hurt me" to Leo.Such words sound a bit hypocritical to the other party.Before you tell them your assumptions about someone's intentions, though, tell yourself that you're just trying to tell them your assumptions—guesses—and that you're doing it to test those assumptions about them. Guess if it is true. Of course, no matter how skillful you are at handling things, you're likely to still encounter rebuttals from the other side.The link between intent and impact is complex, and sometimes the difference between them is almost trivial.Therefore, it is best for us to say that we have anticipated the possibility of the other party’s self-defense before the assumption, so as to prepare for the response and explain to them calmly that we only want to communicate with them better by doing this. Not provocative. The more relaxed you make the other person feel during the conversation, and the less urgent you make them feel that they need to defend themselves, the easier it will be for them to accept your point of view and reflect on the complexities of their own motives.For example, when you say, "Your opinion surprises me. That sounds out of character for you..." If you're telling the truth (and that's out of character for him), your words will work as you want. There is a balance between the information he receives and his own cognition.If they do speak with some kind of bad intention, then, by balance, it will be easier for them to agree with you. When we look at the whole thing from Leo's point of view—accused of malicious intent—we naturally develop a very strong willingness to defend ourselves: "That was not my intention." The object of defense Besides our intentions there is our character.But, as we've seen, starting a conversation in this way only makes things worse. Remember that the accusation that we have bad intentions is usually made up of two separate points: that we have bad intentions; and that the other person feels lost, uncomfortable, or embarrassed because of it.You can't pretend you didn't hear the first point because that's exactly what the other side expects us to respond to.Even so, though, you shouldn't dismiss the second point here.If you start the conversation by listening, then acknowledging the other person's feelings, and finally answering the other person's question about intentions, your conversation will be much easier and more productive. When it comes to your own intentions, please don't throw off the phrase, "My intentions are pure and without malice."We often say this about ourselves, and sometimes it is true.However, many times, as we have seen above, the intent is far more complex than we imagined. We can imagine how Leo's original conversation with Lori would have played out if he had followed our advice: Understanding how we misinterpret other people's intentions to make difficult conversations even harder is critical if we are to see through the fog to see what's really going on.Still, we have a small problem to unravel on the question of "what happened".It's small, but it can also get us in trouble—who's the one to take the blame, the one to blame?