Sidebar
- The way I see it:
I just watched Mel Robbins’ interview with Dr. Stuart Ablon, and one sentence hit me like a slap in the face: “People do better if they can.” That’s it. No drama. No moralizing. Just a quiet truth that changes how I see stubborn kids, difficult coworkers, and even my own worst days.
When someone can’t do what you expect, the easy move is to assume they’re being lazy, selfish, or defiant. But Ablon—30 years of clinical psychology at Harvard along with the directorship of Think:Kids—asks a different question: what skill is missing? If you’re willing to trade outrage for curiosity, you stop treating people like problems to fix and start treating them like people who need support. That small shift turns punishment into possibility and blame into something actually useful.
Think of Hanlon’s Razor: “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.” It’s a blunt way of saying the same thing. Most conflicts aren’t about evil intent. They’re about missing skills, confusion, overwhelm, or poor emotional regulation. When we treat those gaps as moral failures, we escalate. When we treat them as teachable moments, we open a door.
Developing capacity isn’t soft. It’s demanding. It’s breaking things down into small, trainable steps. It’s naming the real obstacle (attention, working memory, frustration tolerance), removing unnecessary stress, and offering practice with feedback. It’s coaching, not coddling. It’s setting conditions so someone can succeed, then raising the bar. For coaches, leaders, parents, and friends, this is freeing: instead of policing character, we become architects of competence.
So next time someone doesn't do what is expected of him/her, resist the comfortable story that they’re lazy or malicious. There’s probably a missing skill you can either help build or honestly assess. People do well when they can. And when they can’t, your job is to help them learn how. That simple pivot is both radically generous and ruthlessly effective.
- Compilation:
- Source:
- The Mel Robbins Podcast, by Mel Robbins,
Harvard Psychologist Shares 6 Words That Will Change Your Family
- The Mel Robbins Podcast, by Mel Robbins,