One reason intention is so important

A recent session with a client served a powerful reminder about intention. There’s huge value in knowing the intention of your actions.  

This client works for a large Silicon Valley company. Her role focuses on company wide initiatives. One of her frequent frustrations stems from leadership's inability to choose priorities and to stick with them once chosen. This is particularly troublesome in her role because her initiatives have long timelines. It’s not uncommon for resources to get pulled or reshuffled. Her work gets deprioritized with new, urgent initiatives. Her timeline lengthens as a result. 

When this happens, she has to reset expectations. Worse, she often feels unable to make any real impact. How can what she’s working on be so important yet perpetually under-resourced? 

I would bet many of you feel the same pain. 

It helps to focus on what you’re responsible for. We also look at how you hold your work and how you respond to leadership. 

On moving the success metric

I asked this client to imagine the best case scenario of her efforts. She wanted leadership to understand the choices they were making. She wanted them to see the downside impact created by their prioritization challenges.

She said, "They’ll finally understand how they are getting in the way of what they most want." She was speaking to the big, strategic changes from the initiatives she’s leading. 

Once grounded in that vision, she was creative about how she might show up. She stopped accommodating their requests to the degree she had been. She took a firmer stance on the impacts their requests would have. She learned to say no. She stepped into a range of leadership that no one else was willing to take. 

These changes made the consequences of priority shifting clearer. Leadership could feel the impact. She aligned her behavior to her reality.

This client’s change in behavior worked in creating her best case scenario. She got leadership's attention on the issues she raised. On the surface it seemed like a huge win. But she felt disappointed. 

She felt she had failed because someone else had to step in rather than her handling it all on her own. If only she were “better,” she’d not need the attention of leadership. 

And therein lies the trap. 

She had moved the success metric from one thing toward another in the blink of an eye. 

How knowing your intention can support you

My client had set an intention, expanded her range as a leader and created the impact she wanted. Without an explicit intention, it would’ve been easier to rest into her feeling of failure. When I helped her recall her original intention, she was able to see the scenario as a success. 

It’s possible she learned she’d rather have set a different intention. And that’s OK. But what unfolded as the result of her choices was proof that she can set an intention and create an impact. That is powerful. 

Her leadership stretch shifts to being clear about the impact she'd like to create. Once she has that, she has the creativity and resourcefulness to make it happen. She proved that to herself.

Call for reflection:

In what scenario are you questioning what to do? Start by setting an intention for what you want to create.

Shine on, 

Alicia