Whenever we have to do something, our skills and technique come into play.
You may be a Salesperson making a pitch, an Athlete competing in a sport, or a Professional Coach guiding someone – how skilled and practiced you are matters.
But there is one more important factor that plays an equally important role in determining the kind of results and response you experience.
I’ll explain this through a simple equation.
Skill{Knowledge,Experience,Practise} X Intention = Results, Response
What is your underlying intention when you are doing something skillful?
Imaging you are preparing for an important presentation. You have all the necessary knowledge and skills to give the presentation. When preparing for the presentation, what is your intention?
- Is it to not screw up.
- Is it to share some information.
- Or, is it to showcase yourself, to make yourself look good.
- Or, is it to bring something of value to your audience so that they can benefit from your knowledge.
Depending on what your intent is, the audience response will vary.
When your thinking is “I don’t want to screw up “, you are already diffident. However good your message may be, your presentation will not make an impact. On the other hand, your intention is to look good, you may create some effect and elicit a good response. But, if your intention is to create value, you will connect with your audience, and the response will likely be excellent.
Let’s take another example. You are a business leader responsible for managing a team to deliver a specific objective. What is your intention?
- To tell your team what they have to do to meet the business objective. You decide everything, and your team executes it.
- To manage your team where you let them take the lead and facilitate their work.
- To be a coach where you provide whatever support and guidance each person in your team requires to contribute their best.
When your thinking is about the control you approach your role in one way, and if your intention is to support, you approach your role in a very different way. Your intention will determine the nature of the outcome you experience as a business leader.
Our intention is the way we want to show up to the world with our skills, how we want to feel inside us, AND how we want to be seen by others. It is the thinking behind our actions. We may not realize it at all times. There is an undercurrent of our intention in all of our daily actions that plays a silent hand in giving direction to whatever we do.
So, the next time you want to experience positive results, be sure to back your skills with the right intentions.
Our intentions are what determine the outcomes we experience.