Ask More: The Power of Questions to Open Doors, Uncover Solutions, and Spark Change pdfdrive com

Craft a Situational Intention
Before your next communications event, answer these questions:
1. How do you want your audience to feel about this exchange?
2. What emotion do you need to embody?
The answers to these two questions outline your situational intention.
(Hint: Because you need to embody what you want to impart, the answers
are generally the same.)

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The exercise I’ve outlined in the sidebar “Craft a Situational Intention” isn’t
the only approach that will work, but it is one of the most effective. Again, just
as in the personal presence brand, it is less about specific verbiage or semantics
and more about what creates the mind frame for you. A former workshop
participant of mine once told me that she’d applied a situational intention of “We
deserve to win!” and landed a multimillion-dollar client. You can’t argue with
that!
Now Try This: The Intentionality Frame
Typically, employees are most likely to interact with leaders at meetings.
Meetings are, in fact, a fertile training ground to learn to use intentions
effectively. And because of the repeated exposure (most meetings occur on a
regular basis), the rewards are huge.
The types of meetings you attend (e.g., small groups, board meetings, sales
calls) may be different depending on your position, but the dynamics are the
same. Many of us overlook the importance of meetings. Some of us even
approach them with disdain because they get in the way of “real” work.
Actually, meetings are your best chance to make a positive impression on others.
Learning how to contribute effectively, manage your points adeptly, and display
confidence are part of moving up the ranks of any company. Careers are made
(and waylaid) from interactions in meetings.
For many executives, meetings are also the places where important ideas are
communicated and where other people assess their thought patterns and strategic
ability. All eyes are watching—and determining what the person speaking is
made of. Here’s a tool called the Intentionality Frame to help you align your
intentions to your contributions in meetings. The Intentionality Frame can be
adapted to practically any situation.
Let’s say, for example, that you need to have a meeting with an
underperforming team that you supervise. You want to learn the root cause of
the performance problem so that you can correct the issue. It helps if you have a
personal presence brand you can reflect upon first. Then you know to set a
situational intention for how you want to come across and what your presence
needs to convey. For the sake of this discussion, let’s make your situational
intention “gravity with openness.” Your situational intention goes in the center
of the frame, as shown in
Figure 1-2
. Normally when we assemble the points we
want to make, we do it either in our head or in a vertical list. Instead, use the
Intentionality Frame to make your points along the outer edge of the frame. If

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your intention is gravity with openness, your points around the frame might be
(1) there’s a clear issue though the cause is uncertain, (2) let’s focus on solutions
rather than blame, (3) it’s important for everyone to commit to change from this
meeting … and so on as you go around the frame. When you use this tool, your
points stay in greater alignment with your intention. It’s a visual trick—a mental
reminder—to communicate your intention. You can also see that if your initial
reaction were to start with some version of “If you don’t improve performance,
there’ll be serious consequences,” it would not support your intention. That’s too
heavy on gravity with no room for openness.
Figure 1-2. Intentionality Frame.
I often use the Intentionality Frame to help people have tough conversations.
I start by having them write lists of points they want to make to the other person.
Then they apply the Intentionality Frame. It’s always amazing to me how much
their points change! That’s why this tool is useful for keeping conversations
focused, on track, and close to the goal. Again, it demonstrates the power of
intentions.
Meetings are a fertile training ground for trying intentional communications.
The Intentionality Frame can be used for public speaking, executive

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briefings, one-on-ones, and sales meetings—virtually any type of human
interaction.