Elevate your skill in addressing “Intent and Impact Entanglements”
Negative impacts occur regularly in conversations and cause significant damage to trust, relationships, and the ability to work together. Growing your skill at noticing and untangling unintended negative impacts is a powerful leadership move. It requires sorting out how you misconstrue both intent and impact in conversations. This is a forever-growth area that necessitates elevating our levels of awareness, curiosity, discernment, and responsibility.
In the following two scenarios you can gain the insight, that if practiced will develop this skill.
Scenario #1 – Your Intent is Positive, but your Impact Isn’t
Let’s say you are interacting with another person, Tom. You have a positive intention to contribute to Tom, yet he responds in a way that seems incongruent with your intent. A common reaction in this situation is that you assume something is wrong with Tom and that he needs to be corrected. E.g., Tom must have misunderstood what you are saying, so you repeat yourself or try to explain and clarify your intent. Or we might assume he must be overly sensitive or is overreacting. But the real issue here is that we are blaming Tom for the situation.
There are more effective ways to interpret Tom’s behavior. To untangle this, we must recognize and understand several aspects of this situation. First, note that uncovering a possible misunderstanding is good news, not bad. Most misunderstandings are not noticed when they first occur and thus result in greater damage.
A foundational aspect in untangling these situations is awareness. We must recognize the flaw in our assuming Tom should know our intent. Only you know your intent. Tom does not; he does know the impact he is experiencing as he listens to you.
Once you fully grasp that Tom cannot know your intent, and that you don’t know what Tom heard, let alone what Tom is experiencing or why, you can begin to untangle the automatic interpretations and open the possibility of choosing curiosity over blind assumptions.
The recognition that you don’t know opens the door to become curious about what Tom is hearing and the impact it is having on him. You might start by asking, “I’m not sure if I’m being clear, please tell me what you heard.” Or “Help me understand how what I am saying impacts you?”
What you ask will depend on the situation. Bringing authentic curiosity to the situation and recognizing that you don’t know what they heard or what impact it had on them will open the door to untangling. When you choose to listen generously and appreciate their perspective, the possibility of a productive conversation is greatly enhanced.
Scenario #2 – You are feeling negatively impacted
In this situation, you are interacting with Barbara and feel negatively impacted. Here, we often quickly assume (and believe) that Barbara has negative intent. This can feel like you are being attacked, and when you are feeling attacked, it seems that Barbara must be attacking you. Once again, we are being blinded by our limiting assumptions.
And, as in the first situation, you don’t know what Barbara’s intent is. You may even have some valid reasons to question her intent, but that doesn’t mean you know her intent. What you do know is what you are feeling and the impact that you are experiencing. This is based on what you heard Barbara say, but this may or may not be what she said or meant to say.
As in the first scenario, it is important to note that recognizing and untangling misunderstandings is a good thing. Again, awareness, curiosity, discernment, and taking responsibility are foundational to addressing these situations.
Choosing curiosity could be asking a question to clarify what Barbara said and what her actual intention is. E.g., “It sounds like you are saying I am not a team player. Is that what you are intending to say?” Now the challenge is to stay curious. Barbara might respond, “No, that is not what I meant to say, I’m just trying to understand what you are attempting to accomplish.” This is an opening for you both to choose curiosity, Listening Generously, and Speaking Straight to find a way to move things forward together.
Even if Barbara were to say, “Yes, that is what I am saying “, you have an opportunity to get curious and find out how Barbara views the situation. You might ask, “Help me understand what happened that has you say this?” Barbara’s view could be valuable to learn and appreciate. As you choose to Listen Generously, striving to see things from that person’s perspective, the likelihood of finding an effective path forward will be greatly enhanced.
In summary, both scenarios offer opportunities to choose effective leadership over automatic reactivity, thereby avoiding negative consequences. A powerful and effective move as a leader is to recognize when an intent-and-impact entanglement has arisen, stay centered, and choose curiosity to find a way through. This requires a commitment to learning through practice. The cost of not learning this skill is to leave these situations with reinforced judgments and filters for each other, greatly diminishing your ability to work together effectively.
