In This Issue: Attention!
We've heard the expression "what we focus our attention on, expands." When we give quality attention to an event or circumstance for a reasonable period of time, we tend to produce - quite often -- desirable results. Author and speaker Earl Nightingale suggested this in his recording of
The Greatest Secret when he revealed that "we become what we think about all day long." Author Jerry Stocking has taken this notion a step further by suggesting that "attention is the currency of our lives." He further adds: "the only thing that we can offer to another human being is our attention." We tend to agree. It's human nature to think that we can offer people our time or our money, but those are just important forms of attention. We therefore propose that significant leadership challenges at work and at home can be addressed by understanding the nature of our attention and where we focus it.
Children and employees present amazing challenges to the most enlightened leaders. Brandon, a 13-year-old, procrastinates at getting his homework done. His father reminds and nags, day after day, and wonders why it's such a struggle for him to accomplish even simple tasks. Mary, the owner of a medium-sized IT company, struggles with staff members that are habitually late for meetings. She reminds, pleads, and even threatens, but lasting results elude her. Both leaders are inadvertently focusing their attention in areas that reinforce precisely those behaviors that they want to eliminate.
This notion of attention also finds expression in an obvious but yet obscure principle. The Law of Cost Migration states that "costs will migrate toward those areas that are measured the least." This, of course, is evident in business: if you're losing money in an area of your business, chances are that you're not measuring something important. Quite often, the cost drain can be addressed by identifying one or more key parameters and measuring them regularly. We claim that the same is true for more intangible concerns, such as behaviors that fail to produce desirable results.
Dale Carnegie, in his classic text
How To Win Friends and Influence People, tells the story of a mill that operated two, round-the-clock shifts, yet both shifts operated below their quotas. Coaxing and threatening didn't seem to help. One day, at the end of the day shift, the plant owner asked for the number of units produced - six - and drew a big "6" on the floor with chalk. He then walked away without further explanation. When the night shift came on, they asked about the number on the floor and were told what had happened. When the day shift came on the next day, the "6" had been rubbed out and replaced with a big "7." When the night shift came on that evening, they saw a "10," and so it went. The plant owner had effectively shifted the dynamics of the situation by shifting his attention. Returning to our previous examples, what would happen if Mary started to measure - and reward - staff members who are punctual, or if Brandon's father began tracking his son's high test scores?
We invite you to identify an area where you're not producing the stellar results that you desire. What key parameter could you begin measuring that would shift the quality and focus of the attention, and therefore the dynamics of the situation?
Would you like help in producing powerful results? Please contact us at any time. We would love to hear from you.
Warm Regards,
