In our leadership program, we teach and coach people to focus on the behavior (what the person said or did) and to avoid the labels or GLOPs.   What in the world is GLOP? It's the... General Labeling Of People.

There is a difference between what actually happens and your interpretation about those events. It is natural and normal for people to observe events and then make inferences, interpretations, judgments, and evaluations about them.

However, many people confuse their interpretations with the facts of the situation. In our workshop, we   coach participants to begin conversations with the facts - especially when there are problems.  The trouble with GLOPs is that they always include some guesswork about the other person's intentions or motives - something that exists only within the other person's head.

As skillful as we may be in our interpretation of another person's behavior, we simply do not know for certain what causes another person to behave in the way they do.