by Dr. Cecil Clements (23rd October 2012)
I was thinking about how to bring about the whole topic of intent, about being very clear about what we needed to do and having the intent to do it. The other day I was sitting in my office, made myself a cup of coffee, carefully carried it and sat down gingerly, making sure that the cup was held away from me, as I got comfortable. Then I leaned forward, taking all these pains because I didn’t want to spill the coffee on my clothes. The next morning I was sitting at home, having another cup of coffee, lounging in home clothes, this time quite unperturbed about dropping any coffee on myself.
I smiled as I thought about the 2 incidents because there was such a difference. On one hand, there I was in the office very careful not to spill anything on my clothes; on the other hand, while at home, I didn’t really bother. I wondered – what made the difference? It was my attire, just trying to be very careful about what would stain me and what would not.
At the heart of it was intent – intent not to get stained by something because of what I intended to portray by what I was wearing. I didn’t want people to see me with stains on my clothes. But at home, it didn’t matter.
Then I thought, without intent to be careful to do something, we are very much like people without a rudder. We are a lot like people without wind in our sails. Whatever comes our way, will come our way. If the coffee spills, it spills – that’s the way it is. But if we take intent, we can prevent some of those things.
In life too, as we look at ourselves, intent is so very important for us, both personally and in terms of our own corporate experiences.
Vijay Govindarajan, in an article ‘The Timeless Strategic Value of Unrealistic Goals’. He was basically piggybacking on an article written by Gary Hamil and C.K.Prahalad way back in 1989 called ‘Strategic Intent’. He said, “Strategic intent takes the long view. The act of such intent is to operate from the future backward, disregarding the resource scarcity of the present.” Basically, he was saying, “We need to have intent; but not just intent. Often our intent is locked into the resources that we have right now.”
So as I look at intent, I want to take it a little further; not really the intent to do something based on the resources that we have, but to look ahead to the future and say, “That’s what I want to do,” and then to work myself way back to the present and look at the resources that I have. But I should not base my strategic intent on the scarcity of resources in the present.
I like C.K.Prahalad’s writings; they always inspired me. I have mentioned his book, ‘The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid’ many times. But when you read through his article, and I would encourage you to do so, it makes such wonderful sense. He says, “Intent is so necessary in the corporate world. Whether you’ve been knocked down or you’ve lost out to somebody or you’ve lost your way, intent is the key to be able to get up when you’ve been knocked down or if you’ve lost business to a competitor or you’re in a phase of life where you don’t have vision. You need to have intent and you need to have strategic intent that is not based on existing resources. Existing resources are limited to human resources, technical resources and financial resources. But when you have strategic intent, it is being able to dream and envision what it is that you want to be able to do.”
Then he talks about how Canon was able to take on Xerox, and match Xerox when Xerox was the undisputed leader in terms of copying machines. But they did it because of strategic intent. He says, “When you look at your world around you, at competition, at competitors, never look at the resources. Never look at the tactics that are being used. Tactics will only tell you about what you see. It doesn’t tell you about strategy.” In that article, he quotes Sun-Tzu, a Chinese military strategist who said 3000 years ago, “All men can see the tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which great victory is evolved.” Every one can see my tactics but nobody can see my strategy.
Prahalad goes on to say that one of the things is that resourcefulness is what really matters in terms of competitor analysis or in terms of strategy and strategic intent.
Do we have strategic intent? Are we bogged down by what we are seeing in the immediate present and saying, “This is all that I have? Let’s see how I can operate within this”? Or are we able to still dream big to set audacious goals as Govindarajan would say – in these austere times. He says, “Especially today, strategic intent is more critical today than even when the article was written. Leadership is tested during adversity.”
Maybe today, you are being tested. You’ve lost something or something has hit you, you’re down and out, you just don’t seem to have the motivation. You’re looking at the things that you have and you say ‘it can’t work.’ Maybe today is just the day to say, “Let me take a clean sheet of paper and begin to write some of those things that I dreamt about some time ago, and let me concentrate on that. Let me forget what I have and let me think about what I would like to see happen.”
Jim Collins would call that B HAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal); something that is way beyond you, not based on what you have but based on what you think you ought to get to.
So, this morning I started with intent. What kind of intent do you have? Is it intent to get up, not just play safe or be careful, but to say, “What is that thing that I want to do that is far bigger than all the tangible things that I see around, but which if I strategically put to use, I can create a huge Big Hairy Audacious Goal.”
That’s my thought for you this morning. God calls each one of us. He gives us incredible vision and goals. He says, “All the resources you have are nothing to the resources that I can give you.”
I want to invite you today to just trust Him for the dreams and the visions that He has placed in your heart and go after them. Don’t look at the immediate surroundings. Look ahead! Keep your eyes on that dream, that vision because it’s fuelled by the Almighty God.
Let me pray with you. Almighty God. On each one of these persons on this call, wherever they are. If they have taken a beating, if they are down and out or if they have just begun to be conformed to the things of this world, I pray that today, Lord, You would break them out of the cocoon. Today, butterflies would come out of cocoons and there would be dreams that would soar because there is strategic intent from each one of them. That they would not look to resources that bind them, but look to You to whom belong unlimited resources that free us to be all that we need to be. I pray this in Your precious name, Lord Jesus. Amen.
I was thinking about how to bring about the whole topic of intent, about being very clear about what we needed to do and having the intent to do it. The other day I was sitting in my office, made myself a cup of coffee, carefully carried it and sat down gingerly, making sure that the cup was held away from me, as I got comfortable. Then I leaned forward, taking all these pains because I didn’t want to spill the coffee on my clothes. The next morning I was sitting at home, having another cup of coffee, lounging in home clothes, this time quite unperturbed about dropping any coffee on myself.
I smiled as I thought about the 2 incidents because there was such a difference. On one hand, there I was in the office very careful not to spill anything on my clothes; on the other hand, while at home, I didn’t really bother. I wondered – what made the difference? It was my attire, just trying to be very careful about what would stain me and what would not.
At the heart of it was intent – intent not to get stained by something because of what I intended to portray by what I was wearing. I didn’t want people to see me with stains on my clothes. But at home, it didn’t matter.
Then I thought, without intent to be careful to do something, we are very much like people without a rudder. We are a lot like people without wind in our sails. Whatever comes our way, will come our way. If the coffee spills, it spills – that’s the way it is. But if we take intent, we can prevent some of those things.
In life too, as we look at ourselves, intent is so very important for us, both personally and in terms of our own corporate experiences.
Vijay Govindarajan, in an article ‘The Timeless Strategic Value of Unrealistic Goals’. He was basically piggybacking on an article written by Gary Hamil and C.K.Prahalad way back in 1989 called ‘Strategic Intent’. He said, “Strategic intent takes the long view. The act of such intent is to operate from the future backward, disregarding the resource scarcity of the present.” Basically, he was saying, “We need to have intent; but not just intent. Often our intent is locked into the resources that we have right now.”
So as I look at intent, I want to take it a little further; not really the intent to do something based on the resources that we have, but to look ahead to the future and say, “That’s what I want to do,” and then to work myself way back to the present and look at the resources that I have. But I should not base my strategic intent on the scarcity of resources in the present.
I like C.K.Prahalad’s writings; they always inspired me. I have mentioned his book, ‘The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid’ many times. But when you read through his article, and I would encourage you to do so, it makes such wonderful sense. He says, “Intent is so necessary in the corporate world. Whether you’ve been knocked down or you’ve lost out to somebody or you’ve lost your way, intent is the key to be able to get up when you’ve been knocked down or if you’ve lost business to a competitor or you’re in a phase of life where you don’t have vision. You need to have intent and you need to have strategic intent that is not based on existing resources. Existing resources are limited to human resources, technical resources and financial resources. But when you have strategic intent, it is being able to dream and envision what it is that you want to be able to do.”
Then he talks about how Canon was able to take on Xerox, and match Xerox when Xerox was the undisputed leader in terms of copying machines. But they did it because of strategic intent. He says, “When you look at your world around you, at competition, at competitors, never look at the resources. Never look at the tactics that are being used. Tactics will only tell you about what you see. It doesn’t tell you about strategy.” In that article, he quotes Sun-Tzu, a Chinese military strategist who said 3000 years ago, “All men can see the tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which great victory is evolved.” Every one can see my tactics but nobody can see my strategy.
Prahalad goes on to say that one of the things is that resourcefulness is what really matters in terms of competitor analysis or in terms of strategy and strategic intent.
Do we have strategic intent? Are we bogged down by what we are seeing in the immediate present and saying, “This is all that I have? Let’s see how I can operate within this”? Or are we able to still dream big to set audacious goals as Govindarajan would say – in these austere times. He says, “Especially today, strategic intent is more critical today than even when the article was written. Leadership is tested during adversity.”
Maybe today, you are being tested. You’ve lost something or something has hit you, you’re down and out, you just don’t seem to have the motivation. You’re looking at the things that you have and you say ‘it can’t work.’ Maybe today is just the day to say, “Let me take a clean sheet of paper and begin to write some of those things that I dreamt about some time ago, and let me concentrate on that. Let me forget what I have and let me think about what I would like to see happen.”
Jim Collins would call that B HAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal); something that is way beyond you, not based on what you have but based on what you think you ought to get to.
So, this morning I started with intent. What kind of intent do you have? Is it intent to get up, not just play safe or be careful, but to say, “What is that thing that I want to do that is far bigger than all the tangible things that I see around, but which if I strategically put to use, I can create a huge Big Hairy Audacious Goal.”
That’s my thought for you this morning. God calls each one of us. He gives us incredible vision and goals. He says, “All the resources you have are nothing to the resources that I can give you.”
I want to invite you today to just trust Him for the dreams and the visions that He has placed in your heart and go after them. Don’t look at the immediate surroundings. Look ahead! Keep your eyes on that dream, that vision because it’s fuelled by the Almighty God.
Let me pray with you. Almighty God. On each one of these persons on this call, wherever they are. If they have taken a beating, if they are down and out or if they have just begun to be conformed to the things of this world, I pray that today, Lord, You would break them out of the cocoon. Today, butterflies would come out of cocoons and there would be dreams that would soar because there is strategic intent from each one of them. That they would not look to resources that bind them, but look to You to whom belong unlimited resources that free us to be all that we need to be. I pray this in Your precious name, Lord Jesus. Amen.
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