Understanding Intent
Thoughts on actions, lives and histories
I have, thus far, worked on a range of projects (product launch, design, patient-centric, contracting initiatives) across a bunch of disease areas. On every single engagement that introduces an innovative product or solution, we have faced the challenge of user intent and it has not been satisfactorily resolved.
One can design the coolest, most tech-savvy program in existence. One can streamline implementation. One can pull a range of diligent experts from tech, medicine and public health to create, in theory, a program unlike any other. In my work I can capture patient preferences and oversee market research efforts like a hawk. I can chop quantitative and qualitative data six ways from Sunday. But I cannot tangibly influence or even reliably measure, a patient’s intention to use and adhere to a program. I can remove hurdles and make adherence easier and thereby, hypothetically, encourage the intent to use. But I cannot directly alter it. Honestly, I don’t know that anyone can.
We hope for the best before putting something new out there in there world. We hope that the universe brings us that which we want most (Alchemist reference). I’m a sucker for optimism and Paulo Coelho quotes but this approach is too sanguine, even for me.
Hoping for intent to swing the preferred way doesn’t cut it when the stakes are high.
The worst case scenario; an entire industry working tirelessly to improve health (and to make profits, agreed) while the end user may or may not have the intent to comply at all. Some say that, well, if the patient fills the prescription or pays a fee, our job is done. I disagree. Our industry needs to do more than dispense pills. And I know I am not alone in thinking this way. Also, this isn’t driven just by a desire to see patients heal, but also to be able to measure health outcomes better. Adherence, as a byproduct of intent, is an important variable in health data analyses. Most of the time it feels like trying to pin down a mouse with a frying pan, i.e., futile, painful, impossible.
To demonstrate the range of impact that intent has, let’s consider something a little less niche than patient adherence. Let’s look at aviation. When William Boeing created his company he did so with the intent to bring aviation to the average travel consumer. And he did. He revolutionized the concept of travel and was succeeded by other aviation pioneers who took Boeing to incredible heights (pun, hah). Millions of people have since attended births, anniversaries, funerals, conferences and vacations without spending endless hours staring at the ocean on a liner.
But in 2001, it only took a few men with wrong, destructive intent to take two Boeing 767s and run them through the iconic twins of New York City’s skyline. They altered the world dynamic in mere seconds. This is the power of intent.
The men behind the atrocities of 9/11 were not stupid. Evil, yes. Destructive, yes. But not stupid. The opposite, in fact, extremely smart and diligent. If their intentions had been any different, even a fraction leaning towards constructive work, they could have taken science or good governance a few Nobel Prizes forward. But they didn’t. Their intent was to destroy. Intent. So subjective, so intangible. Intent seems to fall through the cracks of technology, policies and theories, cause chaos and give birth to more technology, policies and theories. In many cases these have stopped terrorists from carrying out their plans. Success, yes. But where intent is bad and intelligence exists, one can adapt to circumvent hurdles. Like antibiotic-resistant bacteria. It would help if we understood intent better and what drives individuals towards destructive behaviors. To what extent do trauma and genetics influence intent? How can risk factors be mitigated to calm negative intent?
“Intention is one of the most powerful forces there is. What you mean when you do a thing will always determine the outcome.”
- Brenna Yovanoff
Our world, in all its breathtaking complexity, is defined by events in history driven by passionate intent, both creative and destructive. Today we are more advanced in our understanding of the human psychology than ever before. Can we better explain what determines variations in intent? The ripple effects of deciphering intent can reach issues as disparate as managing amusement park crowds to combating rape culture. Imagine the value of proactively addressing harmful intent, instead of reactively bandaging the damage it leaves in its wake.
How can we approach our customers better, protect our nations more reliably and as a collective, learn to be more thoughtful? What do we currently know about human intent, other than a potential canine connection? Do we already have the answers and I need to beef up my Google search skills (purely rhetorical)? I don’t expect that we can understand human intent in it’s entirety anytime soon. But we can try. We can begin with the basics.
Comments welcome.
