Kate's Voice

Conversatoins in my house have shifted a bit as one of our daughters is planning to get married.  She has lots of ideas about what she wants in the way of a wedding, but, frankly, those ideas are all over the board and we need to get cracking on this!!  So today, I sat her down to help her get more clear about what she wants.  Since there are more ways to do a wedding than there are days left to plan this one, I asked her to think about three words that describe her and what she wants.  She did this, and suddenly, she had a filter through which to see her ideas and weed through them.

This idea was born of the study of intention.  One of the best ways to get clear in your communication is to make sure that your intention is in alignment with another’s purpose.  You can do this in one on one conversation, when you plan a talk for a group, or even when you are in a heated discussion.  If you want to persuade, you have to find ways in which their purpose and intention and yours intersect or align.

And this ends our third week together.  I hope you are finding this helpful.  I will see you back here next week. Have a great weekend!

Today I was reminded of the importance of intention in communication.  I was in a meeting and the meeting got off track when one of the participants moved us away from our intention and onto a whole new focus.  In the end, everyone felt that the meeting was a waste of time and that we did not accomplish anything.  This was particularly frustrating because we are all very busy and did not really have the time to waste!

I have found that I can avoid such situations myself if I set my intention for a conversation or a meeting.  There are many possible intentions and sometimes I have to take a moment to figure out what my real intention is. What I do is this:

1. Ask myself what I hope to accomplish.
2. Plan the discussion with the desired results in mind.
3. I state my intention to the group or conversation partner.
4. Ask the others to state their intentions or desires for the discussion.
5. Write the intention(s) down and keep them in view throughout the discussion so that you can stay “on intention.”

Finally, if my/our intentions change for some reason, I state the change and then do my best to stay “on intention” with the new intention.