Stop “Assuming Good Intent”

Image of 8 panel chalkboard framed in red with writing in white. One panel reads "HURT NEVER."
Hurt Never

One of the first lessons I learned about hosting and facilitating online conversations was “Assume Good Intent.” As I read someone’s words online, this approach was practiced before I reacted, to assume the writer “meant well.” A breath before reacting. I have to say, it did keep me from writing overly reactive posts…sometimes.

This practice came out of hosting in the Electric Minds community, and later on The Well and other online communities. In his tip sheet on The Art of Hosting Good Conversations Online, Howard Rheingold talks about “assuming good will.” It made so much sense to me that it became one of the cornerstones of my online facilitation workshops. My assumption was that if people practiced good intent, gave each other the “benefit of the doubt,” all would be well. Or at least less bad. 🙂

What I missed so blindingly was who gets the power to assume good intent. And that someone’s good intent could be coming from a well of white supremacy. This all blossomed into my consciousness with a post on LinkedIn by the astute Tara Robertson.

Tara pointed me to Megan Carpenter, who wrote something much more useful.

“I’ll give you grace if you give me effort”

Megan Carpenter

That feels like it makes the responsibility clear for each party, and not excuse a lack of care or grace under the flag of “good intent.”

It is funny, now I’m seeing the words “good intent” everywhere I look, and I am consciously trying to reshape my language towards grace and effort.

5 thoughts on “Stop “Assuming Good Intent””

  1. I like that…thanks for the nuanced framing. In my blog post that you linked to the context is on tourists coming to visit our little community and it just makes a lot of sense to start with the idea that they aren’t visiting out of maliciousness,although to read Facebook, you’d think people are coming over just to spite us!

    But context matters HUGELY, and in this case, I thank you for pointing to tara’s little post because it matters to be aware that the statement offered as advice to others is serious gaslighting. Especially if it’s a reaction to someone express emotions outside the arbitrary and bounded norms of a place.

    1. Yeah. And it strikes me hard that I never realized I may have been gaslighting others. There is something sneakily similar to having a “bootstrap” mentality, to judging based on a set of values that are not shared and it sneaks into the language and our practices. So much to learn, every day. Thanks for stopping by…

  2. Hi Nancy, I found this post very thought-provoking; thank you for writing it. I’m not yet ready to give up assuming that people have good intent, and I’ll write out my thoughts here, because I’m interested to hear from you or others where I might have a blind spot.

    Personally, I find that it is very helpful to assume good intent in people (even when they are fighting for/against something on social media or in politics) because I think that *they think* that they are doing a good thing; in other words, I think that *they think* that they have good intent.

    And if they think they have good intent, then I think they literally do have good intent; I think that’s what “good intent” means by definition (doing something to protect protect or help something or someone). Even if the “good” outcome they seek might be “bad” from my perspective, it doesn’t change the fact that they think what they are doing is good.

    I believe that assuming good intent gives me an opportunity to understand them better and to understand where they are coming from better, and that helps me to meet them where they are and engage with them.

    On the flip side, if I do not assume that someone has good intent, then I leave myself open to the thought that “maybe this person is just trying to cause trouble and that’s not OK,” and that kind of thinking puts me (and probably most people) into an oppositional stance, closing off the potential for collaboration.

    For context, when I first read your post, I wasn’t thinking about conversations about race but instead of local neighborhood conversations that I see on NextDoor; those NextDoor conversations too often turn hostile and I believe that participants would benefit from assuming good intent as a default. When I read the LinkedIn post that you linked to, I saw that the context was more about conversations where race is a central factor/dimension.

    Maybe conversations about race require different thinking than NextDoor conversations; I don’t know, but you’ve definitely got me thinking.

    And I’ll throw one more random thought in here. Let’s say you’re in an online dialogue and you get paired in a Zoom breakout room with an everyday Russian citizen who supports the official position on the war in Ukraine seen on Russian state-run TV channels, that Russia had no choice but to invade. I think I would have to assume they have good intent or else I wouldn’t want to be sitting there in that breakout with them. I would see it as an opportunity to ask them questions and to try to understand their perspective better.

    Thanks again for writing.

    1. Thanks, Lucas, for your thoughts. I need to tease this apart more as well. I think one of the deep issues IS around race, privilege and power. (And examining my own has been an important part of the last two years for me and I’m only at the start of that road.)

      If these things weren’t in play all the time (and I think in the US they pretty much are in many circumstances – there ARE different contexts) my assuming the other person has good intent might be more benign. AND, assuming good intent does not automatically take me to a place of asking questions and trying to understand. The issue is how these assumptions become one way of diminishing the other because we expect them to take us as we are, even if we are hurting them or holding power over them because of our privilege. And in the US, specifically white privilege.

      Assumptions become another blinder on our part. So while we start thinking “assume good intent” is a generous stance on our part, it can become a barrier to truly connecting and finding paths of understanding. (Note, I’m not saying agreement. And understanding may be too far.) The asymmetry is something I’m having a hard time putting this into words. I need to think/write more and talk to Tara again! This might be a good conversation to have in a gathering!

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