Intentions and Impact

The book Difficult Conversations (Stone, Patton, and Heen, 1999) discuss the impact, intention trap.

Imagine that Sandi and Bob (ex-spouses) are working out a parenting plan for their infant. Sandi says that she will worry about the boy, who is 18 months, when Bob has him. Bob finds this hurtful because it seems obvious to him that the Sandi does not trust his parenting. And, because Bob knows the importance of getting feelings into the conversation, he says that he finds this statement hurtful.

Sandi looks at Bob like he is a Martian. “How is that hurtful?” she exclaims. “All I said was that I would worry.”
Bob then states what he thinks Sandi really meant – he is a poor parent.
Sandi then becomes defensive and says, “I did not intend to say anything about your parenting.”
“Well, you did make a comment about my parenting, and it was hurtful”, Bob responds.
“I didn’t mean to say anything like that.” Sandi keeps repeating.

This example illustrates the intention, impact trap. When we hurt people unintentionally, we tend to think that if they knew our intentions they would not be hurt. While clarifying our intentions can be helpful, some acknowledgement of the hurtful impact is usually more helpful (see our past ezine on acknowledgements). In this case Sandi might have said, “I never intended to make any comments on your parenting, but I can see how you could have taken it that way and I am sorry it was hurtful to you.”

When we are the person who is hurt, it is important to realize that this may not have been the intent of the other person. In this example, nothing was said about Bob’s parenting ability and the leap to interpret it as a personal attack and assume ill intentions is something for Bob to work on. Just because we are hurt does not mean it is someone else’s fault or intent to do so. Sometimes it is our own interpretation that is responsible for our pain.