“He went up, contorted his body so he could get his hands in position to make the catch, shielded off the defender, caught the ball, tucked it in to protect it from the other defender, and then fell to the ground.”
I don’t really know much about football, but this description of what one player did in a span of a few seconds caught my attention. What I love about it is that he couldn’t have been thinking through every movement he had to execute—he was reacting from deep practice and experience to complete the play successfully. Instead of going through each step detailed above, he was deeply in the moment, focused on just one thing.
One of the main reasons we focus on intention as the primary driver of communication is that it affects all of our physical behaviors. It’s easier, and more effective, to think about one thing (“engage the audience”) than many things (“make eye contact, gesture this way but not that way, use more volume, pause, speed up, slow down.”)
If this football player’s intention is “to protect the ball,” that means that the specific sequence of physical actions he takes is going to be different depending on the situation. He can’t practice a single set of reactions and expect that to fit every circumstance. Instead, he focuses on protecting the ball, and his body responds to meet the moment .
If a speaker’s intention is “to engage the audience,” their physical behaviors are going to be different depending on the room, the audience, the time of day, and other factors. They can be like the athlete, keeping this primary outcome in mind while adapting to the changing circumstances.
I’m always going to choose intention, the “why” of the communication, over alignment, the “how.” The how matters, but if you are showing up with self-awareness, focus, and presence, the rest will fall into place.
