Monday Morning Focus

Friends,

How do you focus on a Monday morning? Last week I wrote about how important it is to keep a vision in front of you and those you lead — especially in times of press and pressure. Today just a few words on the importance of attentiveness to others — something that can get lost when stress is high and multi-tasking beckons. Leadership necessarily means getting things done with and through others. So it’s vital to stay with them.

My friend Cathy Raines used to print up one of those old fashioned rubber stamps every year. She’d pick a slogan for fun, for focus, or for both, and then she’d put that stamp on letters, envelopes, notes to people, or paper that she’d keep in front of herself. My favorite of those stamps was when she turned the raffle ticket line into a reminder about leadership practice and her own state of mind; her stamp read: “You must be present to win.”

Being present has become more difficult. The computer and the Blackberry (or “crackberry,” as I’ve heard them called) take us from the place where we are literally physically present — a staff meeting, a drop-in by a staff member, or the road we’re sharing with other vehicles hurtling along at 75 mph — to other places that beckon like the Sirens called to Odysseus. Someone on my team stands in my doorway for a needed check-in and I distractedly alternate between the computer screen and their presence in my doorway. Not always, but often this inattention leads both to sloppy work and drains energy from others who are looking to me for feedback, insight or support.

An RFL reader responded candidly to last week’s column with a powerful story about his re-learning the importance of being present to win:
I was, as often happened, paying only partial attention when my older daughter, then a ten year old, was trying to tell me something important to her, but not particularly interesting to me. She noticed that I was busy reading the newspaper and not focused on her comments. She asked me to listen to her.

I said, “I’m listening, honey, you just go ahead and tell me.”

She reached up and grabbed my face, turning my head to look directly in her eyes. “No,” she said, “I mean full-face listen!”

So, I offer these two simple reminders: “You must be present to win,” and “No, I mean full-face listen!” as great reminders of how to focus and to…

Lead with your best self,

Dan