Intentionality Comes From Good Communication

Borrowed

"RULE 4: COMMUNICATE everything you possibly can to your partners. The more they know, the more they’ll understand. The more they understand, the more they’ll care. Once they care, there’s no stopping them. If you don’t trust your associates to know what’s going on, they’ll know you don’t really consider them partners. Information is power."

From "Made In America" by Sam Walton [Book]

Learned

I wonder how often we treat intentionality as a trait, or how we act, when it only really exists in what others observe.

Here’s what I mean: You can sit with a decision for weeks. Weigh who it affects, the potential outcomes, the sacrifices that come with choosing it, and debate everything. Then, with all of that in consideration, make what you believe is the right call. Yet the people on the other side of it feel nothing but the outcome. The care was there, but it never left your head.

I’ve been thinking about this after meeting with someone who joined our team recently. They’d read the letter I share with every new hire, and when I asked what stood out from it and from their experience so far, they used the word intentionality. They described it in everything, from the way I lead to how the team works together. They cited a meeting from the day before and how the team navigated a challenge together, honest about missteps without pointing fingers.

I appreciated the sentiment. Intentionality isn’t a word I’ve used myself to describe what I’ve been after as a culture, but it resonates. And I haven’t been able to get it out of my mind since. At the same time, it's great for someone to feel this way early on, but if I’m not sure what’s driving that impression, we can’t sustain it long term.

When I thought about where it comes from, I kept coming back to communication. Whether it’s me or someone else. Intentions come through in what the people around us understand about our mindset, and if that understanding arrives only afterward, it’s often too late.

Looking back over the past two years, there’s a lot I’ve put in place with that in mind. Some examples: A weekly email to the team that forces me to share context that may not matter to anyone today but could matter in a month. Weekly agency all-hands meetings with open prompts and discussion. The welcome letter I mentioned earlier outlining our culture and what to expect as a member of the team; and the conversation after it, where I ask how it landed.

None of it has an immediate outcome. What they have in common is that they force information into the open.

Half of that is on me. Left on my own, I’d hold something back because it isn’t fully formed, or because I haven’t decided what to do with it yet, or because there's a lot going on and it feels like it can wait. Meanwhile, everyone else is forming a perspective and making decisions without it.

The other half is the asking. An open prompt at an all-hands, or a question about how the letter landed, exists so that what people are thinking doesn’t stay with them either. Together, these both set the tone for what's "normal" as a team.

None of these rituals exist at home, which is admittedly where this can become harder in the middle of a hectic week. Something I'm continually working on.

What I can keep practicing is getting things out of my head faster than feels comfortable, and building a place where everyone else feels comfortable doing the same.

Thought

If someone described my intentions based only on what they've seen and heard from me, how close would they get?