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797. When Good Intentions Aren’t Enough: Influence Requires Follow-Through · Daily Influence

• 0:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to Daily Influence, your daily dose of positive influence.
• 0:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm Brian Smith founder of IA Business Advisors and co-author of the Iain team series.
• 0:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: Each day we share stories and insights to help you find be and build your influence in a positive and responsible way.
• 0:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm Greg Clino, partner at IA Business Advisors, and co-host of Daily Influence.
• 0:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Be sure to follow, subscribe, and share Daily Influence with someone who could use a little extra positivity today.
• 0:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: And make us part of your Daily routine, whether it's during your commute, on a walk, or an quiet momentous for you, because you're influenced matters.
• 0:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: Hey everybody, Brian Smith here with the I&T series and your daily influence and most of us begin with good intentions.
• 0:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: We intend to communicate better, we intend to listen, we intend to develop our people.
• 1:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: Leave our values, make responsible decisions, and follow through on the commitments we make.
• 1:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: But here's the challenge.
• 1:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: People don't experience our intentions.
• 1:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: They experience our actions.
• 1:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: You can have every intention of being a positive influence, but if those intentions never translate into consistent behavior, the influence you actually create may be very different from the influence you intended.
• 1:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: Today I want to talk about the gap between intention and action and why responsible influence requires follow-through.
• 1:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: Look, intention doesn't determine your influence, babe, you're does.
• 1:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: One of the principles we talk about throughout the i&team series is that we are always influencing.
• 1:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: that influence can be positive, negative, or even different, but it's happening whether we're consciously thinking about it or not.
• 1:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's why good intentions aren't enough, or either may intend it to be approachable.
• 2:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: But if they're constantly unavailable, that's not what their people experience.
• 2:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: You may intend to recognize someone's contribution, but if you never actually tell them, they don't experience the appreciation you felt.
• 2:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: you may intend to address a problem, provide feedback, or have difficult conversations.
• 2:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: But every day you postpone it, you're still influencing the situation.
• 2:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's an important distinction.
• 2:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: We tend to judge ourselves by what we intend to do.
• 2:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: Other people can only judge our influence by what they actually experience.
• 2:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: So periodically ask yourself, is the influence I'm creating consistent with the influence I intend to have?
• 2:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: That little bit of self-awareness can tell us a lot.
• 2:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: Credibility lives in the gap between what we say and what we do.
• 2:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: We talk a lot about trust in leadership, but trust isn't usually built through one big moment.
• 3:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's built through hundreds of small moments of consistency.
• 3:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: If we say something is important and repeatedly fail to act on it eventually, my people learn that it isn't really important.
• 3:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: If I tell someone, I'll get back to them and don't.
• 3:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's a small commitment, but it's still a commitment.
• 3:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: If we tell our employees that people matter, but every difficult decision is made solely around a spreadsheet, they're going to notice that.
• 3:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: The same applies to our organizational values.
• 3:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: Values displayed on a wall don't create credibility.
• 3:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: Decisions consistent with those values, do.
• 3:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: The greater the distance between what we say and what we consistently do, the more credibility we will lose.
• 3:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: And the opposite is also true, when people see consistency between our words, decisions, and actions, trust begins to combat.
• 3:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: But responsible influence requires follow-through.
• 4:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is where responsibility enters the conversation.
• 4:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: Recognizing that your influence is only the beginning.
• 4:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: The real question becomes, what are we going to do with that influence?
• 4:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: Self-awareness matters, feedback matters, continuous improvement matters, values matter, but ultimately all of them require action.
• 4:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: If feedback identifies an opportunity for improvement, what happens next?
• 4:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: If self-awareness helps you recognize a behavior that's affecting other people, what do you change?
• 4:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: If your values tell you what the responsible decision should be, are you willing to make that decision when it's inconvenient?
• 4:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's followed through.
• 4:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: And responsible influence isn't about being perfect.
• 4:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: None of us are going to follow through perfectly every time.
• 4:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's about becoming intentional enough to recognize when our actions and intentions aren't aligned and responsible enough to do something about it.
• 5:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: Because eventually repeated actions become habits, habits become expectations, and those expectations begin influencing everyone around us.
• 5:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: So today, consider one simple question.
• 5:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: Was there a gap between something I intended to do, and what I'm actually doing?
• 5:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe it's a conversation you need to have, a commitment you need to fulfill, someone you need to recognize, a decision you've been avoiding, or simply a behavior you know needs to change.
• 5:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: Don't just intend to do it, take the next step, because your influence isn't measured by what you meant to do, it's experienced through what you actually do.
• 5:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: The choices, rather, you'll take responsibility for the influence you create.
• 5:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, let me leave you with this, be positively and responsibly influential.
• 6:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: I hope you have a great day and you'll join us again on Daily Influence.