I’m walking up to the Travis County Courthouse, and I have plenty of time. I parked the car, paid for the full day at the meter, and have everything I need for my presentation in about an hour.
As I’m approaching the entrance, something starts to feel… off. The building looks like a jail, not a speaking venue. The security guy at the door clocks me immediately — definitely out of place — and asks, “Can I help you?”
I ask him, a little unsure, “Is there a women’s legal conference here today?”
He blinks and replies, “…No. We don’t do that here.”
Oh, great.
Turns out, there’s more than one Travis County Courthouse. One is a few blocks down the road, another is a couple of miles away. Now re-calibrating on my way out, I pull out my phone, check the calendar… and see that the proper address was never included by my assistant.
Eventually, I do find the right building — a beautiful courthouse that looks more like a boutique hotel. Security is a breeze. I make it just in time for the women’s summit presentation, and everything turns out fine.
In the past, I probably would’ve brushed this off. I would’ve accepted the mini mistake… and also the low-level resentment and trust erosion that came with it. I would have kept the thought to myself: Can I trust my assistant to catch the details?
And if I didn’t already practice benefit of the doubt – a lifelong practice that is incorporated into the values of my company and my relationships – I would have also gone into blame, and feeling like a victim to this circumstance: This shouldn’t have happened. Why wasn’t it caught? Will I be late to my presentation now?
And because these thoughts were arising… I knew I needed to use our process on how we handle mistakes in the company when I was back in the office.
This process always starts with everyone agreeing to offer and receive benefit of the doubt. Benefit of the doubt is the number one and only quality you need to have for our mistakes process to work.
Benefit of the doubt: offering the positive assumption that no one is ever intentionally trying to hurt or harm one another.
In my case, neither of us was trying to mess up the other’s day, and neither of us is poor at our jobs — in fact, if anything, my assistant does everything she possibly can to make my life easier.
And because this positive assumption was in place, we could express ourselves openly and honestly during our session to talk through the mistake.
(That’s where trust grows: speaking truth in openness and vulnerability. And where you both know it’s safe to be real.)
So we slowed down and looked at the whole experience. Turns out, there were two main mistakes, one from me and one from her:
1.
I created the original calendar invite with the wrong address, which I wasn’t supposed to do. (That’s her job, and me trying to help ended up not helping!)
2.
She didn’t put the address into the proper location in my itinerary app, which she normally would.
Two tiny mistakes. Both unintentional, and both understandable.
Instead of blame and resentment, we created better support structures, re-clarified our roles, and even got to laugh with each other.
Instead of me thinking I need to take back control and double-check everything behind the scenes myself, we made a clear agreement about who’s doing what from now on. And that means, I get to stay in surrender (which is where I do my best work as a visionary, coach, consultant, speaker, and teacher). I get to continue to trust her and know that she’s handling her role exquisitely.
This is why benefit of the doubt matters so deeply:
there’s nobody to blame, and everything to learn.
Without it, we often default to protection and suspicion, to “Why didn’t you…?” instead of “What happened here?”
Benefit of the doubt is a way of putting the human over the transaction — one of the core values of Ethical Sales and strong relationships alike.
Because when something goes wrong, it’s easy to shift into transaction mode: “I didn’t mean it, it won’t happen again.” “Someone has to take the fall for this clerical error, so it’s going to be you.” A “solution” might be reached quickly when we do this, but emotional debris gets left behind.
The debris settles like secondhand smoke. Then thirdhand smoke. It doesn’t disappear; it sinks into the floor, the drapes, the conversations that come after. It lingers.
Without benefit of the doubt to help work through and clean up the mistake, there’s often a hum of fear, resentment, judgment, and wrong-making in the air or culture. Whether we’re in a family, a partnership, or a team, that undercurrent blocks intimacy, collaboration, and leadership. It increases suspicion, hesitation, skepticism, and withholding. And what gets missed is the opportunity to build trust through any challenge, to say, “I know you didn’t mean harm. And, this still impacted me. Let’s look at it together.”
When you work through mistakes with a proven process that includes benefit of the doubt, you’re able to find the silver linings from the error! In fact, that’s one of the steps in my mistakes process: find the hidden blessings.
In my mistake, some of the hidden blessings were my assistant and I found better systems to put in place to ensure this mistake (or a similar type) doesn’t happen again in the future, we strengthened our mutual trust and resilience, and I got to have a unique experience of Austin, Texas.
Now, remember that the our working definition for benefit of the doubt is:
The positive assumption that no one would ever intentionally hurt or harm one another.
We know this isn’t always true. Abuse and malice do exist, and when they do, that’s a different scenario. That’s not a relationship you necessarily want to stay in and work through mistakes or instances of hurt — whether it’s personal or professional.
In a healthy dynamic, though, where the hurt is human rather than intentionally harmful, benefit of the doubt becomes the entry point to repair.
And if we look at this through the lens of our nervous system (which I love to do), benefit of the doubt is something we can offer when someone else is in the yellow or red zone. And if they’re dysregulated — and you don’t stay anchored in your own awareness — you’ll co-dysregulate, meaning you’ll match their state. You’ll start judging or defending or bracing — and then it’s off to the races with fighting or withdrawing.
This is when giving benefit of the doubt to yourself as well as the person you’re with is highly useful — because while it’s not excusing behavior, it is valuable to help remember that when you’re in the green zone, you’re kind and competent and thoughtful, just like they are. You remember that your relationship is worth giving care to, taking a pause if needed, and repairing together. If you need a refresher on our nervous system zones, you can watch the free training here.
Offering benefit of the doubt is a conscious decision to step back into trust — and to create the conditions for others to meet you there.
Marla Mattenson
With a 25+ year career, Mattenson is a trailblazer in transforming sales paradigms from transactional to relational for professionals who prioritize the integrity & fulfillment of their services. She is a champion of consent-based sales.
www.instagram.com/marla.mattenson
