Change Your Environment by Changing Your Perception

 I have been lucky enough to be influenced by several great leaders over the years.  Sometimes you don’t realize the impact until years later.  One of those leaders is Jay Somerville, who was the Director of the Northwest Regional Emergency Communications Center.  He was my direct Supervisor for most of my time at the Dublin (OH) Police Department.  Jay is a visionary who is also incredibly understanding and blunt--a rare combination.  He reached out to me the other evening, just letting me know how proud he was of my work (which brought me to tears), and I started thinking that he probably has no idea how much he impacted my trajectory. One of the greatest lessons Jay ever taught me was “A.P.I.,” Assume Positive Intent.
It is easy for us to get bogged down in the muck and mire of day-to-day events and become negative.  Especially for those of us who are in accreditation and accustomed to being risk management-minded.  I always plan for the worst, and if it doesn't end up being the worst, all the better.  That risk management mindset can have a slippery-slope impact on interpersonal communications.
For the risk management-minded, we tend to look for potential problems so we can develop solutions before they happen.  When your mind is focused on the negative, conversations and actions can be viewed through gray-tinted glasses or a cynical lens.  It can lead to a distrust of others' motives and a general belief that people are primarily motivated by self-interest.  Imagine the impact if most of your conversations are tinted by this effect.  They may be, and you don’t even realize it. 
If you are a person who struggles with anxiety, you may also be a person who seeks to control situations.  If you are in control, then you know how it will turn out, and therefore won’t need to worry.  However, that means when you don’t have control, you could spiral into anxiety.  That’s how my brain works, anyway.  When Jay talked to me about A.P.I., it was probably to “talk me off the ledge” of a situation that was bothering me.  He wanted me to back up a couple steps and reevaluate the situation.  What he ended up doing, perhaps unbeknownst to him, was teaching me how to control my perceptions and how I felt in my environment.
A.P.I. is a simple concept.  It is attributed to Indra Nooyi, former CEO of PepsiCo, but is also referenced by many leadership strategists including Stephen Covey.  It means choosing to believe that people's actions and words are generally well-meaning, even when they seem negative or confrontational (The Collaborative Way). In brief, don’t assume the worst and give people the benefit of the doubt.  By taking off your gray-tinted glasses, you allow yourself to listen more effectively for substance and not get pulled into playing defense against someone who may not even be on offense.
The lesson of A.P.I., although simple in concept, can be incredibly difficult to exercise, especially when you have trained yourself over the course of a lifetime to look for the negative.  My success in my career was hugely a result of my ability to see down the road to what obstacles may lie and prepare to address or avoid them.  My anxiety had become one of my greatest assets for this reason.  This ability didn’t always serve me best.  Sometimes I felt my environment was worse than it was because my brain was so hyper vigilant, watching for negativity. Jay saw it and taught me about A.P.I., but it took a long time to master the skill.
At first when I was frustrated at a situation and my gut instinct was to be angry or vent, I would often vent to Jay, who would remind me, “Are you assuming positive intent?”  I was not.  I relied on him for this insight.  One day, however, I found myself in the same situation, and I wanted to talk to Jay, but he was out of the office for an extended period.  I started saying to myself, often out loud, “What would Jay do?”  That led me to say, “A.P.I, Lynn.  A.P.I.”  I got to the point where this ran through my head during conversations (a distraction, yes, but it got me where I needed to be). I eventually stopped seeing only the negative evidence in conversations and started to process communications more objectively. Not only this, but by detoxifying my perception of these interactions, I was detoxifying my perception of my environment.  It allows your environment to feel better when you aren’t assuming the worst from everyone within it.
It's been about twelve years since Jay first taught me about A.P.I.  I am proud to say that I now naturally assume positive intent, even if I know the person is being negative.  Now I am viewing those interactions with a sense of empathy.  If a person says or does something negative, I assume positive intent and tell myself, “ok this isn’t about me, this is about this person feeling a certain way, and I know this person just wants to do their job, or protect their people.”  I then try to get to the bottom of what their feeling or goal is and their perception of my role in the situation. I try to find a middle ground to show we are on the same path.  It’s very powerful.  I say the phrase, “I know they mean well,” a lot.  That doesn’t mean it didn’t upset me, but I can see the person's motivations more objectively and don’t get mired in the negativity. If anything, I get frustrated that I can’t make the other person assume positive intent in myself or others.
Some Cautionary Notes…
This doesn’t mean that I don’t ever get upset or think someone is being negative towards me.  It just isn’t always my default response.  I’m not perfect; sometimes I can miss A.P.I. because I am a little too close to a situation, and my feelings are hurt.   It happens.  You must work on being self-aware to learn your biases.   There are other times when the assumption of positive intent is wrong. When interacting with someone, you should usually assume positive intent, but as Maya Angelou said, “when someone shows you who they are, believe them.”   She said to do this the first time, but we are trying to give people a chance, right?  My point is, you can’t allow A.P.I. to make a fool or a victim out of you.  Give people the benefit of the doubt, but if they prove otherwise, then you need to acknowledge it. 
There are a few people I can think of for whom I really tried to assume positive intent, but they either showed me the assumption was wrong or they refused to see the positive intent in me.  It’s unfortunate because I could have been an advocate or ally for these people, but I had to always keep my guard up.  By assuming positive intent, in general, however, I can save my energy and sanity to fight the real battles, and not waste them on any I have created inside my head.
I encourage everyone to read more about A.P.I. 
Covey, S. R. (2013). The 7 habits of highly effective people: Powerful lessons in personal change. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. 
Diamond, M. “Indra Nooyi: “Assume Positive Intent: Effectiveness, Leadership, Tips For The Under 30 Crowd.”  6 March 2019. (https://www.michaeldiamond.com/indra-nooyi-assume-positive-intent/)
SixSeconds.com. “Three Key Strategies from Stephen MR Covey: How to Lead with Trust & Optimize Wellbeing. (https://www.6seconds.org/2017/10/31/stephen-mr-covey-three-key-strategies/)