🎯When you are intending to get things done, consider before you commit🎯
Intent and Strategy are deeply connected with one lubricating the other to keep us motivated, engaged and on the decision pathway for what is next.
Clients and colleagues often discuss what they intend to do with me. “My intent…”, or “I intend to…” do something. What is happening here is the creation of a social connection point/pathway to take action and, if well received, to get stuff done.
Theorists call these prospective intentions. These are different to immediate intentions which can be like 'I am going to grab a cup of coffee'. They go on to say that an intent has an action plan and a commitment.
The plan to grab a cup of coffee in a business with a kitchen, coffee machine and coffee can be as immediate as walking to the machine with a nearby cup, tapping the coffee you want and drinking from the cup. The plan to have a coffee in a place with no available coffee can slip into a prospective intent, it may involve coordinating people, walking to a café, standing in line, ordering, and then waiting for your order to be ready so you can drink from a disposable cup. With both intents the commitment is the same, though the social connection point/pathway is tested more when prospective intent comes into play. This may lead to doing without a cup of coffee, for now.
The commitment comes from a decision based on what is possible when considering environmental factors, such as in our drinking plans:
☕️The immediate/future climate
☕️ Hydration/caffeination levels
☕️ Desire/need
☕️ Social structures
☕️ Availability.
This process of considering is a critical component of strategy, where a range of possible factors and outcomes are measured in an interconnected way. Roger L. Martin, in the HBR, notes five questions to build a strategy, broadly grouped as:
🎯 Aspirations and goals (intent, considering the following environmental factors)
🎯 Where to play
🎯 How to win
🎯 Capabilities to build
🎯 Management systems to operate.
Using these five strategy questions, the prospective intent to have a cup of coffee above could include: buying a coffee machine, putting it in the staff kitchen, adding coffee to the regular kitchen supplies orders, having coffee cups nearby, and educating people on how to use the machine. A more appealing social connection point/pathway, taking a prospective intent strategy and promoting an immediate intent outcome.
When a plan to have a cup of coffee becomes an immediate intent, we are free to ask, “what is the next iteration of the strategy?”
🎯Intent and environmental factors tested by a social connection point/pathway🎯