This week I have a lovely and talented co-author for my article. Evelyn transformed her life with one well-communicated sentence. She contacted me 7 years ago because she wanted to get promoted to VP and requested Executive Coaching to help her get there. I knew she was doing well since that time and was very pleasantly surprised to receive an email from her a couple weeks ago.
Evelyn wrote:
“I remain ever grateful to you for helping me become a VP. As shared afterwards, I was able to become a VP with one sentence to the Chief People Officer, exactly as you prepared me for.
It was incredible!
“Since then, all aspects of my life have come very far. It is a story I would be glad to help you tell in a newsletter.”
I was delighted that all aspects of Evelyn’s life are continuing to flourish and prosper!
So many people have asked for advice on how to get promoted to VP (it’s a challenging jump from Senior Director to VP because the number of positions narrows so significantly), that I knew Evelyn’s story would be an interesting one. So I invited Evelyn to write it. Here it is in her words:
“I reached out to Ingrid to help me with several communication challenges in my professional and personal life. She introduced me to the Communication Formula. At the time I was facing a professional dilemma where a peer who was missing key qualifications had been promoted into a new VP-level role that I would have wanted to be considered for. I was not aware of this, nor given a chance to apply. I had even been coached that this peer needed to learn from me on multiple key aspects of seniority and professional experience. The fact that I was a woman and the other person was a man did not sit well with me either.”
“Ingrid and I spent time discussing this and I realized that as much as I had to say about the situation, whether it was fair, what I really wanted was to become a VP, right now! If that could happen, none of the context or rationale really mattered. What happened with the other person didn't matter. All the complexity melted away. I knew my intention was to become a VP.”
“We also talked about the affinity part of the formula. In day-to-day work conversations, generally my affinity was my weaker side of the formula. I was so passionate about achieving the goal that I mistook the shared interest in our objective as affinity. Ingrid coached me on how to create that magic.”
“When I returned to work, I asked for a meeting with our Chief People Officer. I delivered the ONE sentence with full affinity and intention. It was, ‘I want to be a VP now.’ The CPO looked at me and said, ‘Okay, let me go make that happen.’ It was magic!”
Until they learn how to develop affinity and intention, most people don’t have the awareness that fewer words delivered with real affinity and the right amount of intention create spectacular outcomes. They think, “Oh, that would never work!” because they’ve said something similar and it didn’t work.
Often they think, “But I AM saying it with affinity and intention.” And that’s where the Coaching comes in. When I show them their videos, they begin to see that both affinity and intention are missing. ESPECIALLY when they compare their Before and After videos.
When people are trying to persuade, they often make the mistake of adding too many words. But adding words that don’t create real meaning only makes it more difficult for the person receiving them.
Getting the exact RIGHT words for the situation, creating a real human connection and speaking with strong intention provide the understanding required to carry your message across and to create real meaning. These are the important skills to develop.
When you know what Sara knows, when you can use that knowledge in action, there is no door that is closed to you, no outcome that is “impossible.”
Intention and affinity put every possibility within your reach.
Be the cause!