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The Gift That Keeps On Giving In 2020, If You Let It

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There is a treasured and established concept from 2019 that I suggest you jettison in 2020. It’s a widely held assumption, a working standard, that is killing your productivity and possibly even your joy. 

It’s the notion that in an era of infinite computing power, leaders and managers must acquire equivalent limitless processing capacity. It’s that our value is based on how ably we absorb the firehose of information served up daily at a high velocity, and our worth is calculated by how rapidly we respond to the legions who ping us for information, advice, decisions, and resolutions. It’s that part of our reputation is earned by being uber-available to “jump on a quick five-minute call,” of which there seem to be no end.

If you’ve succumbed to the idea that what makes a successful leader or manager is to respond to messages, data, and demands on your time with the speed and volume of a machine, I suggest that it’s time to un-succumb. 

Let me tell you why.

We’re living in a busy world where our staff, our teams, and our leaders are mired in guilt and overwhelm because no one can manage the volume of information and messaging headed their way. There is so much complexity and speed that we feel we need to mimic it to master it. But keeping up with the infinite is a sure track to adding no value.        

In a typical day, countless interruptions arrive with an aura of urgency, regardless of their true significance. And that comes at a cost to both humans and organizations. The Information Overload Research Group found that “knowledge workers” (and that’s a lot of us) in the U.S. lose 25% of their time “dealing with the incessant stream of data,” costing the U.S. economy $997 billion every year. You don’t have to be a STEM Ph.D. to calculate that prime opportunities for work that genuinely matters are routinely lost every day, and those lost days quickly mount up into weeks and months of too little progress, all because of shattered attention.

Speed over substance is the trendy fad diet of organizational management. It comes with tasty toys and sweet software, but it will ultimately make us slower, fatter, and more discontent. While the practice of immediate response may punch-up adrenalin in the short-term, it doesn’t contain the nourishment of actual responsibility or achievement, which take focused time to shape, manage, and maintain. By comparison, the “master everything/respond instantly” approach is all sugar. It builds nothing of value for the future. And rather than engaging our workforce, it burns them out and accelerates attrition. 

As a leader or manager, if you’re facing a daily assault of immediacy, grappling with the same enormity of unlimited data, and racing to keep up with the open access everyone has to you, it isn’t very easy to see another way.

And yet, there is another way.  

In a world of distraction and fractured attention, focus is a gift you can give to yourself and your team that will deliver rewards all year. It’s a gift that must come from leaders because only leaders can enforce it. I’m talking about periods of sequestered time that executives, managers, and staff need to give their uninterrupted attention and deep thought to problem-solving, innovation, and productivity. More than any form of group collaboration, this individual quiet time is what liberates creativity in the brain.

Focused attention unleashes a uniquely human characteristic that is also a huge competitive advantage: the ability to associate formerly unconnected concepts to come up with something entirely new.

Imagine the feeling of engagement and inspiration your key players at every level would have if they were actively fulfilling their jobs using the ideas, training, talent, and promise for which you recruited them. What if you could give each of them a zone where nothing could penetrate their missions, where they would be free to sink into a project without being on alert for incoming texts or getting distracted by the boss dropping by for a non-urgent update? 

Consider the productivity you might get from a legion of people who regularly occupy quiet, isolated blocks of time where they focus exclusively and intently on the purpose for which they were hired. What if they could feel that their work was important to the organization because they had the room to accomplish it? What if the only “multitasking” in that protected zone of focus was chewing on a pencil while considering how to solve a problem or develop an opportunity?

For 2020, I encourage you to find ways to reintroduce focus into your culture as a routine priority. By all means, start with the low-hanging fruit, such as transforming noisy open-concept workspaces into quieter zones of productivity, or instituting regular work-from-home days for those from whom you expect results that take brain time to develop. Set up standard blocks of focused time for people at all levels, and ban interruptions during those times, even from the boss.

No one is more engaged than an employee who gets to focus on what they love, on what they joined to do, on what ignites their passion, particularly when they see evidence that their organization is serious about letting them make that contribution.

While it may not be easy to establish these zones of focused attention or to imbue your culture with respect for protected time, compare that to the lost productivity of a thousand employees who are distracted all day, every day. Imagine the competitive advantage, the growth in value, and the opportunity that can be seized when those same thousand people can achieve what matters most, instead of serving what interrupts most. 

No one will remember any of us for the text we answered or the call we chose to take because our day was already so fractured that it felt beyond rescue. But everyone will remember what we accomplish. Achievement is an intentional act that requires constant and deliberate attention, including the step of shutting out distractions. To that end, I’ll leave you with this thought: 

Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. — Viktor E. Frankl

Choose focus. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.

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