Vineet Nayar — The Intention Experiment

A 2007 book, The Intention Experiment, explored the science of intention, drawing on the findings of leading scientists around the world. Author Lynne McTaggart uses cutting-edge research conducted at Princeton, MIT, Stanford, and other universities and laboratories to reveal that intent is capable of profoundly affecting all aspects of our lives. In the book, William A. Tiller, a professor emeritus at Stanford University, argues: "For the last 400 years, an unstated assumption of science is that human intention cannot affect what we call physical reality. Our experimental research of the past decade shows that, for today's world and under the right conditions, this assumption is no longer correct."

This is a key teaching of perennial wisdom, which is now being confirmed by modern science. The teaching is that the "stronger" one's consciousness, the more powerful one's intention. The internal Chinese marial arts are based on "energy work" (qigong, chi kung), a fundamental principle of which is, vital energy (qi, chi) follows intention (yi, i). This is something that those we practice self-cultivation discover in their own experience.

In order to communicate intent to others to get things done as a leader, one must actually have the intention. Intention has to have the concentrated force of one's consciousness behind it. Attention focuses consciousness on a point, and intention propels the energy of one's consciousness. Some people are born with greater capacity in this regard than others, and they are natural leaders. However, it is possible for anyone to progressively master attention and intention by cultivating the potential of attention and intention.

Harvard Business Review | HBR Blog Network
The Power of Intent
Vineet Nayar | Vice Chairman and CEO of HCL Technologies Ltd., an India-based global information technology services company