“I learned to always assume positive intent... When you assume negative intent, you're angry. If you take away that anger and assume positive intent, you will be amazed.”
Assume Positive Intent
From Indra Nooyi’s entry in Fortune’s The Best Advice I Ever Got feature, published April 30, 2008. The original URL (archive.fortune.com/galleries/2008/fortune/0804/gallery.bestadvice.fortune/7.html) returns HTTP 400 as of May 2026; the wording is reproduced consistently across the secondhand aggregator chain and captured on Wikiquote (Wikiquote’s own citation traces through India TV, 2013, not directly to the Fortune feature). The longer passage in her voice runs: “My father was an absolutely wonderful human being. From him I learned to always assume positive intent. Whatever anybody says or does, assume positive intent.”
Nooyi’s argument in the rest of the piece is that assuming positive intent is a discipline on yourself, not a courtesy to the other person. Assuming negative intent makes you angry and your responses random; assuming positive intent keeps you listening. “You don’t get defensive. You don’t scream.” Skip the discipline and your own reaction becomes the second negative: “two negatives fighting each other,” in Nooyi’s phrasing.