Alignment.

Intention.

Practice.

This week I am applying Ignite CSP’s coaching framework to our commitment to antiracism and the Black Lives Matter movement.

Yesterday I wrote about intention, the driver of action. Intention is the instigator; intention tells us what to do. We have to cultivate self-awareness of our reactive, default intentions before we can transform them into generative deliberate intentions.

The second step in this process is alignment. Alignment is the behavior that grows out of your intentions. It is what we see in someone else that tells us, “They’re nervous, they’re confident, they don’t like me, they’re irritated, they are in a hurry.” We read, and send, these signals instinctively. It is very hard to have behavior that is not aligned with your intention.

For example, think about a time when you have been nervous—maybe a big presentation, a job interview, or a toast at a wedding. I bet someone said to you, “Oh, don’t be nervous! You’ll be fine!” But that advice never helps because it ignores the fact that your intention (to hide, to apologize, to get this over with) is still active. So you still speak quickly (to get it over with), quietly (to hide), and stand behind the nearest piece of furniture you can find (to hide).

If you can transform your intention, it’s like installing new software. Now the job interview is an opportunity to connect, the presentation is a chance to get the team excited about the new initiative, and the wedding toast is the time when you get to celebrate this union. These deliberate intentions change your behavior. The single most effective way to leverage change in your communication skills is to change intention. Now you speak more slowly, so that  no one misses the points you’ve prepared. You speak at a volume that includes everyone in the room. You stand front and center so that there’s no barrier between you and the rest of the room.

In keeping with this philosophy, we at Ignite CSP are studying our behaviors, our alignment. We are looking at our corporate body language and tone. We are transforming our intention to leverage greater change. We are turning intention into action.