Setting your Intention
The purpose of Setting Your Intention is to clarify, both within oneself and within the group, what each person’s aim is.
The purpose of Setting Your Intention is to clarify, both within oneself and within the group, what each person’s aim is.
This tool comes from the Kaospilot school for creative business design and social innovation. It was used when students pursued their final projects, working individually on their chosen topic. The class came together weekly to support each other. The input from others helped to maintain a feeling of being part of a bigger cohort, even if everyone was working individually. Even when used with strangers it can elicit much gratitude towards the group.
PRINCIPLES
• Create transparency and trust about the purpose and the process of the interview; establish a personal connection early on.
• Suspend your voice of judgment (VOJ) to see the situation through the eyes of your interviewee. What matters at this point is not whether you agree with what your interviewee is telling you. What matters now is that you to learn to see the situation through the eyes of the stakeholder.
• Access your ignorance (access your open mind): As the conversation unfolds, pay attention to and trust the questions that occur to you, Don’t be afraid to ask simple questions or questions you think may reveal a lack of some basic knowledge.
• Access your appreciative listening (access your open heart): Connect to your interviewee with your mind and heart wide open. Thoroughly appreciate and enjoy the story that you hear unfolding and put yourself in your interviewee’s
shoes.
• Access your listening from the future field (access your open will): Try to focus on the best future possibility for your interviewee that you feel is wanting to emerge. What might that best possible future look like?
• Leverage the power of presence and silence: One of the most effective interventions as an interviewer is to be fully present with the interviewee and the current situation—and not to interrupt a brief moment of silence. Moments of silence can serve as important trigger points for deepening the reflective level of a conversation. More often than not, these opportunities go unused because the
interviewer feels compelled to jump in and ask the next question. Be courageous. Stay with the opening of the NOW.
This method is based on a systems thinking approach to problems. It is particularly useful in the case of sustainability since dealing with modern global problems always involves complexity. Systemic approaches helps to see a bigger picture and understand the connections among environmental, social and economic aspects, creating the possibility to not compromise any of them while planning problem resolution.
A prototype is a practical and tested mini version of what later could become a pilot project that can be shared and eventually scaled.
Use the following principles to determine what you need to do to stay connected to your vision and translate your idea, concept, or sense of possibility into action.
PRINCIPLES
1. Crystallize vision and intention: create a place of silence for yourself every day. Clarify core questions that you want to explore with your prototype and get to know your own role early, so you can adjust.
2. Form a core team: five people can change the world. Find a small group of fully committed people and cultivate your shared commitment.
3. Iterate: “Fail fast to succeed sooner”, as David Kelley from IDEO says. Do something rough, rapid, and then iterate. Design a tight review structure that accelerates fast feedback.
4. Platforms and spaces: create “landing strips” for the future that is wanting to emerge.
5. Listen to a bigger purpose: listen to what is emerging from others, from the collective, and from yourself. Take a few minutes each day to review your quality of listening.
6. Integrate mind, heart, and hand.
For Alex F. Osborn, the originator of the classical brainstorming technique, building upon ideas already suggested was an important factor of successful brainstorming. This technique is based on playfully and systematically modifying existing products or processes and finding alternatives to the original solution/process/product/situation.
The Pro Action Café is a space for creative and action oriented conversation where participants are invited to bring their call / project / ideas or whatever they feel called by and need help to manifest in the world.
The intention of this exercise is to a) open up and dare to ask any kind of questions concerning your project/enterprise and b) receive as many suggestions as possible in a short period of time. You will be surprised and overwhelmed about the collective wisdom of a group.
The purpose of setting intentions is to clarify, both within oneself and within the group, what each person’s aim is.