To be a little more specific, can you really hide a self-focused intent?
You might be able to camouflage it for a while, but before long, it becomes obvious.
It starts to Drip. Drip. Drip. out of us.
It could be our tone of voice, our inability to listen or the way we keep bringing the conversation back to our thing.
And that’s a problem for us as influencers, negotiators and leaders, because when a self-focused intent leaks… it reeks.
It contaminates our presence.
As Ghandi said, “The moment there is suspicion about a person's motives, everything he [or she] does becomes tainted.”
Don’t get me wrong, the areas of self-focus may be on legitimate or worthy things. The problem is that if those things are all about us or our organisation - and they’re dominating the interaction - we will get what they call in some circles, “salesperson breath” - the halitosis of an overly self-focused intent.
This came up in a workshop yesterday where a few teams were exploring how they can have more influence in their stakeholder relationships and conversations.
Our focus: a move from in-self to in-service. If we can crack that nut, we amplify our influence.
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