[Neurons] Can a good intention be bad? (resent)

[Andrew Bryant]

>From Andrew Bryant www.selfleadership/blog


In coaching and NLP there is a presupposition (principle) that states,
“behind every behaviour is a positive intention.”

What this principle enables the coach to do is to track back from a
behaviour to the frames of mind (mental map) that generated it. By
labeling the intention as ‘positive’ we do not make our client wrong and
are therefore able to build rapport and leverage change.

For example, if I was working with someone with overeating behaviour, I
would not say, “you stupid fat person, don’t you know that overeating is
bad for your health!” Instead I might ask about their intention when they
eat, do they eat for pleasure, or for socialisation, or for reward, or to
remove pain, or overcome loneliness etc etc. By understanding and
acknowledging that even an unuseful behaviour has a positive intention we
can establish rapport and invite the client to consider a new behaviour
that meets the intention and is also ecological (safe for self and
others).

What often confuses non-coaches and people who do not understand the
abundant frame of NLP is that they mistake the term positive intent for
good intent. For example if a political leader causes a genocide, how can
that be good? Well it is certainly not good or positive for the victims,
but it the behaviour will certainly be positive in the mind of the
political tyrant. He might see genocide as a behaviour to remove threats
to his power or to fulfill some personal vision of racial purity.

At least by understanding the positive intent we can understand behaviour
even if we don’t agree with it according to our own or group’s moral
standards.

To create a ‘good society’ where behaviours such as murder or genocide do
not exist we would have to have a shared intention. Shared vision and
group identity sets up cultural norms of behaviour where the majority will
willingly comply. Unfortunately and fortunately there are always outlying
individuals who either consciously or unconsciously challenge the cultural
 norms of behaviour. This is unfortunate when people like Hitler or Mugabe
gain power but fortunate when in the case of Rosa Parks, an African
American woman, who challenged the “good” norms of American culture by
refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger on a city bus and
sparked the civil rights movement.

So “yes” a positive intention for an individual can definitely be bad for
another or a group, but we must first seek to understand before being
understood. The alternative is to deny human intention and enforce the
greater 'good' on the individual - but then isn’t that what Marx and Lenin
believed?

Cheers,
Andrew Bryant
Director, Self Leadership International
(for more posts visit www.selfleadership.com/blog)





Regards, Andrew

Andrew Bryant
Executive Coach and Leadership Trainer
andrew at selfleadership.com
www.selfleadership.com