Year of Discovery (Week 22: Stating Intentions and True Craftsmanship)

This last week flew by. I can’t believe we’re here on another Wednesday and welcoming the start of a new month. There are four more months of 2021 and I took some time this morning to check back in on my quarterly and annual goals, readjusting them based on what I’ve learned and what’s most important to me now. I went back through some of my goals — like learning French — and reprioritized them to the top of my list for September, and reoriented my schedule around them. It takes just over a month to build a new habit so the question was: what habits and skills do I want to learn this month?

Today, I’m writing reflections on the importance of stating clear intentions and true craftsmanship.

Stating Clear Intentions

Many of us have heard the phrase ‘Actions speak louder than words”. Growing up with immigrant parents from Taiwan, it was a phrase that was repeated time and time again as something to wholeheartedly live by. This manifested in my role in the family as someone who ‘took care’ of what needed to get done as a way of being responsible and seeing my duty as lessening the burden on others by taking decisions and acting on my own. Engaging with people from different backgrounds and cultures in my 20s has taught me that actions are equally as important as words (or stating intention). I’m learning that wisdom is an understanding that without the yin, there can’t be the yang — and how to hold the balance of opposites: in this case, the opposites of actions and words.

The importance I’ve placed on action can be seen through my friendships, relationships (personal and work), and family. Through quick problem solving, I often think through a variety of scenarios and move towards action on a solution that makes the most sense through my filters. Sometimes, the reactions from others are positive, along the lines of being grateful for my forward-thinking. Other times, the reactions are confused or frustrated: why did you do this and when did you decide this? The latter reactions are what I’ve reflected on more this year.

While my intentions are often good and clear to me, allowing my actions to speak without sharing my intention clearly with others can leave a lot up to interpretation. Sharing intentions ensures that I’m on the same page as others and allows for a process of co-creating a solution where all intentions are shared upfront. This is a muscle I’m still building and as I continue to practice it, I’m realizing how much it changes the dynamics of the relationships I have through creating more cohesion and shared responsibility.

There are a number of approaches to share intention, such as Liam Saville’s approach he learned while in the Australian army: SMEAC — standing for Situation, Mission, Execution, Administration and Logistics, and Command and Communication. If you have any you use or live by, please do share.

Questions to reflect on:

• What are ways in which you share intent today?
• The way we engage with others today is a reflection of the myriad of experiences we’ve had as a child and in our adult lives. What are ways you engage with others that help or hurt the relationships with them today?

True Craftsmanship

Something that stuck me the most as I traveled through Italy a few weeks ago was the culture around true craftsmanship: a robust blend of art and technique, which allowed creativity and innovation to flow through knowledge passed on from generation to generation.

The words “arte” (art) and “artigiano” (craftsman) come from the Latin “ars”, which means “practical or technical method”. In the Middle Ages, people referred to a craftsman by the word “artista” (artist) but not the word “artigiano”. A craftsman was considered a person who excelled in his craft and in his art.

At the start of their ‘career’, craftsmen chose their pathway (painting, sculpting, woodworking, leather making, etc) and started as apprentices. They joined a “Bottega” over time, when an experienced craftsman (like a tutor today) taught them the secrets of the job. At the Bottega, the shop owner “il Maestro” dealt with customers, decided which work to execute and designed new work. Then, several aides, apprentices or associates, worked together with him or upon his instructions. At the end, the “Maestro” alone would refine it and complete the most difficult details.

As apprentices, the young students observed so they could understand and learn the dynamics of the workshop’s work. Over time, they learned about materials, instrumentation, processing techniques and were more actively involved. In the beginning, students received no pay. They could receive a little pay only when their production standards met fixed quality targets set by the “Corporazioni delle Arti e dei Mestieri” (Arts and Crafts Guild). Only after the internship period could they become “associate” or “companion”, which meant they could work with the Maestro until they got the necessary tools and passed an exam to become “Maestro” and start their own enterprise.

I was at awe with the life of craftsmen in historical Italy because it felt like a contrast to our moden world that values mass market and scale over fewer purchases and quality. I remember during my childhood when my parents remarked on how products were built to last in the 80s and how quality dropped when companies, like Schwinn, moved into mass market where the incentive was to commercialize and sell volumes over invest in their art and sell quality to fewer.

Because the world ebbs and flows, what would the world look like if it moved back towards a higher quality standard? What would our daily lives look like if we moved from careers to crafts — from to-do lists to fearless creativity and innovation?

What I’m listening to now: CoffeeBreak French (if you have any other resources for learning/listening to French, please do share!)