Intent vs Impact
Do the culture wars have you walking on egg-shells? Does political correctness leave you too anxious to talk to anyone? Have you ever had a situation where you thought you were being helpful but ended up offending someone? Has anyone ever taken offence at your jokes? But I didn’t intend to insult you! You took it the wrong way! I didn’t mean it!
Time to consider ‘Impact vs Intent’ with suggestions on how to negotiate it.
As a doctor, both my intentions and my impacts are important. Good intentions on my part are taken for granted. The impact of my work, too, needs to be positive. To help achieve this, I rely on science as much as possible. But in the workplace, and when dealing with friends and strangers, things aren’t as clear-cut. We can’t rely on scientific evidence as much. We rely on common sense (not so common) and social protocols (always changing) and we get anxious about it. Things get messy.
Many people think that if their intentions are right then their impact is right, and to hell with what others think! Others say that, no matter the intent, we need to be hyper-aware of impact of our words, and everyone needs to get with the program! So our communication becomes political to try to avoid conflict rather than genuinely friendly. Misunderstandings occur. But we hate misunderstandings, and we hate affected speech, and we hate having to speak or act in a certain way not to be offensive. It becomes inauthentic, fake.
In these six posts, I’ll discuss the science around the “Impact versus Intention” dilemma and make suggestions on how to negotiate it. I’ll assume that we really do want to get on as human beings and I know that’s too big an assumption. We’ll look at “Impact versus Intention” from different angles: legal, neuro-scientific, psychological, cultural, and the selfish-altruistic spectrum. I intend to add to your understanding and hope to have a positive impact. The relationship between intention and impact can be handled once it’s understood. Here are a few principles:
You’ll never go wrong when you listen and apologize.
Build bridges of trust rather than walls of distrust.
Aim for good ‘feelings underneath’.
If you create a bad impact, a good apology can fix it. Take responsibility without being personal: I’m sorry that what I said caused you stress. I didn’t mean it that way. An apology clears the air to put two people back in trusting relationship. Learning to apologize is an important skill if you want to get on with people. Building bridges always helps, and later I’ll explain about the importance of good feelings underneath.
Definitions
INTENT is what you want to get across to someone else; what you want to do for them or what information you wish to share. Your intentions are based on your thoughts, your feelings, your cultural context and on your particular worldview.
We tend to assume that our intentions are always good. As a psychiatrist, I know that they may not always be good and we may not always realize this. Unconsciously, we may harbor ill intentions, and sometimes these slip out.
As far as possible, keep your intentions good.
IMPACT is how someone actually receives the information from you. It is how you affect them. Beyond your intention and words, the impact they receive is based on their thoughts, feelings, culture and worldview.
Another person can’t read your mind and they can’t ever be sure about your intentions. Your good intentions can be misread, or your unconscious ill-intention may be read correctly, and either can lead to an adverse impact.
As far as possible, aim for a positive impact on others.
Normally, your good intentions will have a good impact on others; no problem.
Your bad intentions will have a bad impact on others; so be careful.
Problems arise when your good intentions have an unintended bad impact. This can surprise you, but in a world of diverse cultures, sex and gender expressions, and diverse world-views, religions and beliefs, good intentions surprisingly often lead to bad impacts. You may have to choose your words carefully.
Aim: Good Intention, Good Impact
As a doctor, normally my good intention results in good outcomes: I intend to treat someone so they recover from an illness and they do. Sometimes, however, my good intentions lead to an adverse impact: somebody suffers a medication side-effect, a complication or, despite my best efforts, they don’t recover well-enough. I need to prepare people for adverse outcomes; but if they happen, I listen, apologize if necessary, and go back to the drawing board to see what can be done. Always, I care about the person. This approach will get the best possible outcomes. I aim to keep good feelings underneath and not to take complaints or criticisms personally, but sometimes I do. Criticisms are information to help me do better next time.
Aim: Listen + Apologize when needed + Don’t take things personally + Care.
These keys help build a bridge to others. With that bridge, you can have another go at a good impact. Listen attentively, apologize sincerely, and build a bridge to do wonders in messy situations. These give you a second chance at a good impact.
Take Care
Dr Christian Heim