Rick White explains why your impact in conversations matters more than your intentions. He shares six habits for difficult talks: define your outcome, read the room, state the issue clearly, listen to their perspective, share yours without blame, and collaborate on next steps.
Chapters
Good morning, my name is Rick White from 180 Biz and this is my Just One Thing. What are we going to talk about today? We're going to talk about impact. Have you ever left a conversation thinking, holy crap, this went amazing, only to find out later that the other person felt frustrated, confused, offended, upset, whatever it was. But I want you to understand, it's because people experience your impact, not your intention. You're responsible for your intentions. You're also accountable for your impact. Let me explain. Most people kind of step back and evaluate themselves by what they meant, what they tried to do, what they intended, what they said. But others are evaluating you differently. They're evaluating based on what they heard, what they felt, what they experienced. So an advisor could walk away from a presentation going, holy crap. I explained everything, it was awesome. And the customer, the vehicle owner on the other side is thinking, I felt pressured. That happens, and it's really, really sad. How about the owner that says, hey man, I was just giving feedback, I really love this person, and the team members walking away feeling attacked? This is so bad. How about a spouse that says I was trying to help, and your partner feeling like they were criticized. See, what I need you to understand, and this is something— this is a path that is near and dear to my heart— good intentions do not guarantee positive impact. So you really got to understand that. See, intentions are what happen inside your head. Whereas impact happens in the real world, happens with other people. Your customer's decision is based on impact. Your team members' engagement is based on impact. Your team's trust is based on impact. The relationship with your spouse is based and shaped by impact. See, if your intention and your impact, they don't match, they're not at the same level, impact is gonna win every single time. So I want to give you some ideas to fix this, to make it better. I need you to understand that this is something I have struggled with. And you know, when I was a kid growing up, my mom used to tell me all the time, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. And I never ever understood that until recently. It took me a long time to figure that out. See, what happens is I say or do something and it has an impact that was unintended. And instead of helping that person deal with the impact that I had on them, I'm defending my intentions. And we do that a lot because we're afraid of I'm not a good person. I do things right. People are like, you're mean, you're bad, you're this. No, no, no, I'm not that. I never meant that. It's not about that. It's about how it hit them. So I want to give you some tips for this. So first thing I want you to do, okay, is I want you to know your outcome. If you're going to sit down and have a conversation with somebody, I want you to be able to step back and I want you to know what your outcome is. Typically, you're looking for understanding or a change in behavior. Those are the two things you're looking for. But one, what's gonna happen is by stepping back and saying, okay, what do I want to have happen here? It gets you to calm down. It gets you to relax a little bit. And I think that's really, really important. Second thing you got to be able to do is read the room. That's kind of a thing. Well, like we're teaching my grandson right now. He's kind of a sarcastic little me. And like, dude, you got to read the room. You got to read the room. And I'm still working on that. You got to understand that impact has a lot to do with where they see themselves. So you've got to be able to read the room, get an idea of what their energy is. Okay, then you're going to state the issue, right? Shannon just said amen, 100%. Excuse me. You got to be able to state the issue. And that just sounds like, hey Shannon, I really need to sit down and talk to you about this. It's important. You know, we're going to have a hard conversation. And what I want to do is I want to reassure, listen, your job's not at risk, anything like that, but we need to have a really hard conversation. But here's the issue. Now, before I start talking, I want to see it. Number 4, see it through your eyes. That's the next thing you want to do is be able to see it through their eyes first. Okay. Then once you've listened, really listened and ask questions and got answers, right? Because we've talked before, the worst thing you can do in communication is listen to someone else's words. Apply your meaning. So then, see it through their eyes. You're going to go through it. And then you're going to come back. And then you're going to share your perspective. This is what I'm seeing. I want you to ask me questions so that now we get an idea and understand that the behavior or the issue is out here. It is not that person. It's not their identity. Do not label them. And then, what can we do moving forward? This is where you collaborate and you work on something together. And because you're collaborating, you have a much higher chance of getting somebody to say, yes, I'm in, because they haven't been dictated to. And then the last thing you've got to be able to do is restate the outcome. Right? You got to restate the outcome. Hey, listen, we were sitting down to talk about this, and what we agreed on was this. You're going to do this, I'm going to do this, and we're going to check back in here. Are we both cool with that? Now you've got something that really, really lands way better than what it would have done if you had just emotionally came out pushing, attacking, and it doesn't have to be that way. Communication isn't about delivering a message. It's about creating understanding. It's about creating agreement. And it's about moving forward. See, most people, including me, have spent their lives defending their intentions. But you know what great leaders do? You know what great people do? They study the impact. So I want you to stop asking this week. I want you to stop asking, what did I mean? What was my intentions? That's not what I meant. Doesn't matter. What did I create? What experience did I create? Because I need you to understand, your intentions may start the conversation, but it's your impact that determines the outcome. Thank you so much. If you're having any issues in your shop with this and you'd like to talk to me, Shannon will put a link to my calendar there. You can grab a spot and let's sit down and talk and see what's going on. Okay, thank you everybody for being here. I want to say God bless, have a great week, and go make some money. I'll talk to y'all later. Bye-bye.
