You’re Assuming They’re Playing Your Game

For most of my working life, I made an assumption that caused me a lot more frustration than I realized.

I assumed the other guys wanted what I wanted.

I spent thirty-five years as a union electrician. When I went to work, I wanted to do good work.

Not merely work that passed inspection. Not merely work that was good enough that nobody yelled at us.

I took pride in the work. I wanted the installation to be effective, efficient, professional. When appropriate, even beautiful.

I wanted to go home knowing that whatever my hands had touched that day was better because I had been there.

And for a long time I unconsciously assumed the guys around me were operating from roughly the same framework.

Why wouldn’t they be?

We were on the same crew.

Wearing the same hard hats.

Pulling the same wire.

Working from the same drawings.

Getting checks from the same contractor.

Surely we were playing the same game.

Except we weren’t.

• Some guys cared deeply about craftsmanship
• Some cared about production
• Some wanted to make the foreman happy
• Some wanted overtime
• Some wanted eight hours without anybody fucking with them
• Some wanted to avoid blame
• Some wanted to get through the day
• Some were there because this was their career
• Some were there because this happened to be the job they had right now

And even among people who cared about doing good work, “good” did not necessarily mean the same thing.

One guy’s “clean install” was another guy’s “waste of time.”

One guy’s “good enough” was another guy’s “why bother showing up.”

I saw that difference in very practical ways.

I might look at a conduit run and think about whether it was straight, whether the bends matched, whether the next electrician could understand what we had done, and whether I would be proud to point at it years later and say, “I installed that.”

Another guy might look at the exact same run and think:

• “Does it work?”
• “Did it pass?”
• “Can we move on?”

Neither of us had to announce our philosophy.

You could see it in the work.

That was the part I missed for years.

I thought the argument was about the conduit.

A lot of the time, the real disagreement was about what the job was for.

It took me longer than it should have to understand something obvious:

Working on the same job doesn’t mean you’re playing the same game.

And once I finally saw it in construction, I started seeing it everywhere.

The Cost of the Assumption

The real damage isn’t the initial mistake.

It’s what happens after you make it.

You look at someone’s behavior. It doesn’t match what you would do. So you fill in the reason.

Quietly.

Automatically.

Without even noticing you’re doing it.

There’s an invisible phrase hiding underneath every one of those sentences:

“…because that’s what I would want.”

We take our own framework, project it onto the other person, and then judge them for failing to meet a standard they never signed up for.

We end up arguing with an imaginary version of ourselves wearing their clothes.

We judge them for playing badly when they may be playing an entirely different game.

It made me remember a science-fiction novel I read as a teenager that gave me better language for the same mistake.

In The Mote in God’s Eye, humans encounter an alien species and immediately begin interpreting the Moties through human assumptions.

They observe what the Moties do.

The dangerous part is what they assume those actions mean.

They fill in the gaps with a human framework.

• Goals
• Needs
• Civilization
• Safety
• Motivation

What a reasonable intelligent species would naturally want.

Except an alien species has no obligation to want what a human being wants.

That sounds obvious when I write it.

It is much less obvious while we’re doing it.

And we do a miniature version of that every damn day.

We look at another person.

We see what they’re doing.

Then we quietly fill in the reason using ourselves as the reference model.

The cost is that we misjudge people constantly.

We burn energy on conflicts that aren’t really conflicts.

We make demands of people that only make sense inside our own heads.

Same Mat, Different Game

I see it all the time now in Brazilian jiu-jitsu.​

I love being on the mat.

But what I want from BJJ at this point in my life may be very different from what the guy next to me wants.

Some people want the next belt.

Some want to compete.

Some want to become killers on the mat.

Some want to collect submissions.

Some want to eventually become instructors.

Some want to prove something to themselves.

Some may still be trying to prove something to everybody else.

None of that automatically makes them wrong.

But it isn’t necessarily my game.

At this point, I’m damn happy I get another day on the mat.

I get exercise.

I get movement.

I get to solve interesting physical problems.

I get to laugh with people I like.

I get to learn something.

Part of why I train is because I value physical activity, learning, cognitive challenge, and staying engaged as I get older.

I care about keeping my brain and body working.

I do not need to win the room.

I don’t need to be the toughest guy there.

I don’t need to race anybody to the next belt.

If progress happens, great.

But I am increasingly interested in an infinite version of the game:

• Can I keep playing?
• Can I keep showing up?
• Can I stay curious?
• Can I get a little better without turning the activity I love into another performance review?

That means I sometimes make decisions a younger competitor would find strange.

I tap earlier than I used to.

I sit out rounds when my body says no.

I choose partners based on trust rather than challenge.

And the competitor makes decisions I would never make.

The mistake would be either of us assuming:

“If he were serious, he’d want what I want.”

Serious about what?

That is the question.

Driving gives us the same lesson in a much less philosophical form.

You can be a careful driver.

You can leave space, signal, watch your mirrors, try to be predictable.

None of that means the person in the next lane is operating from your framework.

Maybe they’re late.

Maybe they’re distracted.

Maybe their risk tolerance is wildly different from yours.

You do not need to know which one before adjusting your behavior.

Understanding that they may not be playing your game changes what you do.

You stop relying on them to behave the way you would.

That isn’t judgment.

That’s awareness.

Different Doesn’t Mean Lower

There’s another mistake hiding on the opposite side.

First we assume everybody should think like us.

Then when we discover they don’t, we decide they must be beneath us.

• Lazy
• Stupid
• Uncommitted
• Weak

Whatever word protects our own framework.

Martial arts gives me a better image.

A black belt and a white belt are standing on the same mat.

The black belt knows far more jiu-jitsu.

That is real.

Pretending otherwise would be ridiculous.

But that does not make the black belt a higher category of human being.

And the white belt doesn’t need to put the black belt on a pedestal as though belt color confers wisdom about marriage, money, politics, parenting, business, or the meaning of life.

In this particular discipline, one person has traveled farther.

That’s all.

There is a reason I like the idea behind the word “sensei.”​

I understand it as roughly:

One who came before.

Not God.

Not infallible authority.

Not a permanent ranking of human worth.

Someone who got farther down a particular path before you did and may therefore be able to help you see something you cannot yet see.

That is a much healthier relationship.

The senior doesn’t need contempt.

The junior doesn’t need worship.

Teacher and student are positions in a relationship, not permanent rankings of human worth.

And the positions can reverse the moment the subject changes.

The black belt may teach me jiu-jitsu.

I may know something about electrical construction that he doesn’t.

Someone else may know motorcycles.

Another knows parenting.

Another has lived through grief I have never experienced.

Another is twenty years younger and sees something in technology that I completely missed.

Everybody is ahead of me somewhere.

Everybody is behind me somewhere.

The path is bigger than the rank.

Before You Judge the Player

Here is the lesson I keep having to relearn.

When somebody’s behavior makes no sense to me, one of the first questions should be:

What game are they actually playing?

Not:

“What game should they be playing?”

Not yet.

First:

• What are they optimizing for?
• What are they protecting?
• What does winning look like to them?
• What do they value?
• What are they afraid of losing?
• What are they trying to get more of?
• What are they trying to avoid?
• And what have I simply assumed because it would be true for me?

Sometimes the answer will make me more compassionate.

Sometimes it will help me communicate better.

Sometimes it will show me that I need a boundary.

Sometimes it will tell me this is not a person I should work with, roll with, hire, follow, trust, or depend on.

Understanding is not the same as agreement.

I am not saying every game is equally healthy or ethical.

A person can have different goals and still behave badly.

Unsafe behavior can still be unsafe.

Dishonesty can still be dishonest.

Bad craftsmanship can still be bad craftsmanship.

Boundaries still matter.

Understanding someone’s framework does not require surrendering your boundaries to it.

But understanding gives me a chance to respond to the person who is actually standing in front of me instead of arguing with an imaginary version of myself wearing their clothes.

That is a much better place to begin.

The mature sequence is not that complicated.

Notice that I may be projecting my framework.

Understand what the other person may actually value or optimize for.

Distinguish difference from genuine misconduct, danger, incompetence, or incompatibility.

Respond with appropriate empathy, communication, boundaries, standards, or distance.

Remain willing to discover that my framework may also be incomplete.

That last part is the one I forget most often.

Sometimes the person frustrating me is teaching me precisely because they are different.

They reveal an assumption I didn’t know I was making.

They show me that my own game has changed in ways I hadn’t articulated.

They remind me that the path is bigger than whatever rank I currently hold.

⚔️ The Dojo Drill: Find the Game

Think of one person whose behavior has been frustrating you lately.

Before deciding what is wrong with them, answer four questions:

1. What am I assuming they want?
2. What evidence do I actually have that they want it?
3. What might they really be optimizing for?
4. If I understood their game correctly, what would I do differently?

That last answer might be:

Listen differently.

Explain something differently.

Lower an expectation.

Set a clearer standard.

Create a boundary.

Stop depending on them for something.

Or simply stop taking their choices personally.

Do not use this exercise to excuse genuinely harmful behavior.

The goal is accuracy before judgment.

Because one of the easiest ways to misunderstand another person is to assume they want what you want.

Before you judge how someone is playing, make sure you know what game they’re actually playing.

📚 Leader’s Library

​James P. Carse — Finite and Infinite Games​

Why?

Carse offers a useful way to understand why two people can participate in the same activity while pursuing completely different goals.

Some games are finite: there is a winner, a rank, a score, a promotion, or some other defined outcome.

Others are more infinite: the purpose is to keep learning, participating, adapting, and continuing the game.

That distinction applies far beyond sports. It can help you understand coworkers, training partners, competitors, leaders, relationships—and yourself. Before assuming someone is playing badly, it is worth asking whether they are even playing the same game you are.

A strong addition to the library for anyone interested in leadership, perspective, relationships, lifelong learning, and becoming better at understanding what other people are actually trying to accomplish.

P.S. Know a martial arts gym owner who’s stressed about money or student numbers?

Do them a favor: send them to The Leader's Dōjō, my website where I help owners get more students and keep them longer with simple systems.

One forward from you could change their gym: The Leader's Dōjō​

Chuck