Where’s Your Focus?

One of the questions I get most frequently from leaders is: Why are we not achieving the results I know we are capable of? In this case, much to their disappointment, I answer a question with a question: Where’s your focus?

There are two cause-effect relationships in play when we talk about getting the results you want. The first: clarity = focus. Whatever you are clear on, your focus naturally follows. The clearer you are on what you want, the more you focus on it. For example, the more clear you are on the outcomes you will create, the more your focus mobilizes to those specific outcomes.

The second cause-effect relationship is: focus = results. Said simply, the more focus, meaning energy and action, that you apply to something significantly increases the likelihood of creating results around it.

It makes sense. If you are razor-sharp clear on what you are trying to create and you commit 100% focus and energy on making it a reality, you make it happen. So when you are not generating the outcomes you want, it generally means that either your clarity is not clear enough and/or your energy is not being focused effectively. Energy is getting diffused or distracted in too many places and not generating the power of focus that is required for effective execution.

As leaders, we often think about focus simply as what we are doing and where we are allocating resources. But it means much more than that. By focus, I mean: where is the collective energy of you and your organization being applied? When we look through that lens, we have to broaden the lens to: what you do, what you say and talk about, what you think about, what you feel, what you spend money on, and how you respond to things that happen each day. Each one of the actions both expend energy and have a ripple effect to create or diminish further energy.

Let me give you some simple examples. Every minute your employees are unclear about elements of your strategy and plan, they are focused on what they don’t know, rather than creating what you want. Every minute you or your employees are talking about other employees or relationships that aren’t working perfectly, you are consciously choosing to spend your focus on what’s breaking down rather than how you will break through. When you choose to put too many priorities on the plate, rather than make tradeoff decisions to focus on the ones that will really move the needle, you are choosing to diffuse your energy in a way that looks like an oscillating sprinkler rather than a pressure washer.

Focus is a conscious choice of how you utilize and apply your collective energy. In each and every minute, what each person is thinking about, feeling, talking about, and acting on determines how fast and effectively you move toward your intended outcomes.

So focus is not just a discussion about what I am doing right; it’s also awareness of where I am wasting energy that should be redirected to strengthen the effectiveness of my focus. This is simply the foundational tenet of Lean applied to the collective energy of the organization.

Here’s a simple exercise (that you can download) to make this real. Visualize for a second the most important things you want to create or happen in the next year. Not a laundry list…THE single most important thing. Now, think about last week. Just for yourself, honestly think about and assess how you spent your energy during that week. What did you do? What did you think about? How much did you spend your time on things that weren’t the critical path to the one thing most important to you?

Many leaders, that do this exercise honestly, find that under 50% of their true energy is being focused on what really matters. Instead, they get distracted by too many competing priorities, non-purposeful meetings, employee issues, keep-the-lights-on type of activities, etc. The thing that I would tell you is that this too is a choice. The choice to NOT focus is just as much in your control as the choice to focus.

The non-forgiving part of this conversation is that the formula for success doesn’t change. Clarity + 100% focus and commitment = success.

Effectiveness at focus is simply becoming more aware in every minute about your choices and their implications. The more effective you become at this, the more effective you become at achieving exactly what you define.