Intending and Committing

Speech Acts include assertions, assessments, requests, offers, promises, retractions, cancellations, revocations, instructions, orders and commands.  They are explored in more detail in the Life Leadership Course ‘Using Intentional Language’. Assessments are the most common way that you challenge current reality. They can take the form of a judgment, an evaluation, or opinion that is not verifiable from evidence objective evidence.

A “grounded assessment” on the other hand is supported by relevant facts or generally accepted by the public at large as justified morally or in custom and practice. Grounded assessments provide personal motivation and a justification to commit to joint action. When assessments are not grounded, trust can easily be lost because different distinctions and interpretations are being made

“When we see the worlds and stories we live in, we have the possibility of observing them, choosing them, and designing them. We can open new possibilities for action.”  – Bob Dunham

When seeking to build trust and generate commitments that will deliver what was intended, it can be helpful to ask:

Get your relationships right

How good are you at noticing how you actually go about making requests and offers and managing the web of commitments that you generate in the flow of everyday life?. You live in the language of commitments as they drive your intentions and actions.  You may not even notice how you let your commitments slip or see the negative consequences for future relationships or performance. For example:

• Do you lose your cool under pressure?
• Are you uncomfortable dealing with criticism?
• Do memories of betrayal influence your choices?
• Does failure hurt you more than success feels good?
• Do you allow the context to influence your mood?
• Do you enjoy watching other people fail?

Even feelings of arrogance or vulnerability can have major implications when negotiating and then agreeing on commitments. It’s important, therefore, to show your sincerity by suspending your ego and validating the opinions of others in your conversations.  It’s best to use reason rather than emotion to ensure you are being less judgemental about the conclusions you draw.  

Be generous in the way you look for connections in order to align your shared intentions so they fit the context. 

When you look for connections, think systemically. The diagram below explains how making a commitment, like catching a cold is just an event. You think back to previous experience to anticipate what might happen and what has prevented you from delivering on commitments to ensure you have learned from experience to do things better this time. Finally, you need to question how committed you are to deliver what you value or believe is important, and do others involved feel as committed as you.  Do they share your standards, values and beliefs? 

The priority when making commitments with others is to take “care” of the relationships that are needed to deliver the promises that you make. Think about: 

1. How you monitor the way requests and offers are made and delivered?
2. When and in what circumstances you will know that commitments are not misunderstood?
3. What could happen to your mood and self-esteem if you fail to deliver on your commitments?
4. How you will actively manage and coordinate a network of commitments?
5. What could happen to relationships when someone lets you down? Do you complain?
6. What skills you will need to practice to get better agreements and have better conversations?

Remember, that when you are dealing with a dominant personality it is wise to remain results orientated. With ego-driven people, it’s better to focus on open-ended, logistical questions because they are more likely to reveal hidden motivations and agendas.  Conscientious people often prefer to be business-focused and like you to respect each other’s knowledge and appreciate mutual concerns before making a commitment. 

Get your mood right

You may not have observed just how your mood state is affecting your effectiveness in life and as a leader. Moods can have a major impact on relationships and the results you get, not to mention the impact on your self-confidence and wellbeing. The best form of learning comes from questioning assumptions and not repeating the mistakes you made. This takes humility, calm reflection and a desire to be better next time. 

Under the pressure of a commitment, value comes from your interpersonal skills, empathy, social sensitivity, collaboration, storytelling and relationship building.  

By observing your mood state you reveal your degree of self-awareness and how best to access your innate human wisdom for intuition and insight. It is a consequence of your beliefs. As a powerful observer of your whole way of being you become aware of the impact your assertions, assessments and declarations are having on the conversations you have and the actions you then choose to take to get the results you want. If the results do not deliver what was intended, either you change the actions or question your original intentions and observations.

 
Diagram based on the work of Chalmers Brothers

Strengthening your commitments can involve creating a mood of calm ambition and curiosity. This is important, simply because when you say “yes” to a request you are making a commitment that will generate expectations that you may not have fully appreciated at the time. You can overpromise, even overextend your capabilities and then underdeliver. You can then sabotage your commitment and resign yourself to delivering with a minimum of care or effort. This can diminish, even destroy your reputation. 

The worst mood state when making a commitment is a lack of confidence. Be aware of how fear can impact on your ability to commit:

• fear of rejection or looking stupid
• fear of looking helpless or needy
• fear of appearing incompetent or losing control
• fear of owing favours or losing respect
• fear of not being liked or losing your credibility

Get your future right

Commitments are about your being and doing. You are asking yourself NOW WHAT changes in your way of being and acting could create the future you want. Before you commit to promises that can generate new commitments, you are asking SO WHAT change is needed to produce a better future and what it would mean to you. The change is based on your assumption about WHAT is or is not working for you.  The diagram explains this in more detail.

When you make a commitment you see it as a benefit for someone else. But commitment is something you embrace for your benefit. It’s an integral part of who we are as a person. You live in the commitments you make to yourself and others, they shape how we turn up to take action. A strong commitment empowers you to act in a way that makes you face difficult facts and justify whatever you are seeking to do now or in the future is to satisfy your desires.  Your commitments are also part of your “way of being”, giving you a sense of purpose, something you care about that gives you comfort and the motivation to pursue your intentions. Read more about Facing Facts.

Until you are comfortable with “not knowing” you cannot be fully open to inquire into or embrace any uncertainty that feels like a threat. It stops you being curious and open to learning. You can behave like a hedgehog and withdraw from situations in which you don’t feel confident. Being more like an octopus you will commit to learning more about your situation in order to assess any risks and take the first step to explore a context bigger than our personality, or your identity will allow. Read more about Exploring Possibilities.

In my experience, the future becomes more rewarding when I commit to daily practice and continuous learning.  A personal commitment is needed to satisfy my need and desire for growth as a human being. For example, the need to impress, perform well, or do the right thing. When I share commitments with others I can turn my intentions into reality by making better offers and requests. Carefully considered commitments give my life and relationships clarity of purpose and direction as I can make change happen by co-creating a shared vision with others. To commit, I first have to communicate honestly and be accountable for what I commit to.

Get your learning right

As a Life Leader, you see a commitment as an opportunity for learning and growth as a human being. You are continuously developing new learning methods and practices to help you strengthen your capabilities, involve others in coordinating action and collaborating to achieve goals that deliver breakthrough results. This perspective translates into working better together and committing to a future you care about.

To engage with questions that do not have easy answers, it is helpful to ask what your intentions are and what information can you observe or bring to mind. This is when it can be helpful to produce a diagram that tells a story that makes sense to you. As you try and understand what the diagram below is telling you, the first step is to pay close attention to the groupings and the relationships between them.  Having done the focused thinking you then back-away to reflect on what knowledge you already have that fits with what you are seeing. This slows down your thinking so your unconscious mind can embrace the bigger picture to gain a deeper understanding.

The diagram below seeks to explain how your nervous system creates meaning from your observations and intentions. It reflects Ken Wilber’s “Integral Model” of how you produce your worldview. It also shows how important your mood state is in shaping how you interpret events and which ones you then pay most attention to. 

It is often said that the best motivation to learn something is having to teach it to others. To become a teacher is to become a learning leader. It’s not just about being an “expert,” it also involves the quality, intensity and control of your emotions. They get embedded in the way you think, your health and wellbeing, as well as how you move, learn and change. They all impact on your capacity for deep listening that manifests itself as your openness to inquiry and possibility.

As a Life Leader, you can diffuse and expand your thinking by becoming calm, relaxed and comfortable with moments of silence, disconnection or irritation, simply because they are seen as the natural components of sensemaking. You are not your thoughts and feelings, they are just mechanisms your brain and body use to help you predict and focus your attention on what to do next to serve your intentions.  See the work of  Lisa Feldman Barrett. 

Get your personal growth right

Life can be seen as a journey of development where you grow as people. Your inner sense of self is always evolving, but it happens at different rates depending on how aware you are of your inner capacities and how you relate to others and the world around you – Way Being in the world.

Leadership is about moving beyond the limitations you can place on your capacity to make sense of things in order to take more effective action. It relies on how you think, how you relate to and understand other people as well as your own experience, moods and emotions. 

William Torbert shows how your ability to activate yourself to sense and respond to the demands placed upon you in any given moment, emotional state or context. He called these stages of meaning-making ‘Action Logics’, the way you interpret your actions and choices. They are ways of assessing your dominant way of thinking and capacity to grow into an effective leader of yourself and others.   

For example:

• An “opportunist” will tend to respond emotionally, unable to sense other people’s feelings. Their problems are always the fault of others.  
• A “diplomat” wants to conform and seeks certainty in facts. They look to others for validation of their worth because they cannot see the bigger picture.
• An “expert” is capable of abstract and logical thinking and can get lost in the detail when things get complex or ambiguous.
• The “achiever” understands that the world is complex and looks for patterns and root causes. They are self-managers and see others as valued contributors and collaborators in the delivery of their vision.
• An “individualist” knows how to sense and respond to experience in the creation of their own reality as they distrust conventional thinking. They see change as dynamic and have a high level of mind/body self-awareness. Life is a journey of personal discovery and development.
• The “strategist” sees the world as interconnected systems of processes, contexts and relationships. They are deeply connected to a sense of purpose and are comfortable with ambiguity and stay grounded in the face of volatility, uncertainty and complex change.
• An “alchemist” sees a world that they have created and can therefore change. They know how to renew and reinvent themselves to find new perspectives that can deal with many situations at a multiplicity of levels, whilst keeping an eye on the bigger picture. Important qualities when dealing with a VUCA World.

 The stages are stimulated by learning from experience how performance is grown through regular practice and accepting the limitations imposed by practical constraints in a given context. There are times to enforce change and times to coach. In complex situations, it can be helpful to stand back and observe before attempting to facilitate a change.