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Start the week with the presupposition that behind every behaviour is a positive intention. You did not mean to break that glass when you were doing the washing up last night, your intention was to clean the glass. The fact that you accidentally smashed the glass against a tap and broke it does not detract from your intention to create a clean glass. It was an accident, that’s all.
This belief is important to the eradication of blame in the workplace. It allows people to take responsibility for their actions. It makes it OK for people to try, possibly err and learn. If they know that others are going to accept that their actions had positive intentions they are much more likely to try things that may produce ground-breaking results.
This presupposition is at the heart of learning organisations. It encourages people to take responsibility, to experiment and to do.
