What distracts and overwhelms me when I try to focus are all the voices.
The projects that shout for attention. The connections that whine about their perceived neglect. The calls still unanswered, the thank-you notes yet to be written, and the mail lying unopened, all cry out for my time and energy.
And while all that is urgent make their incessant demands, the dreams quietly begin to fade before I have a chance to capture the essence of their initial power and vitality.
Hence the attraction of being freed to focus on the present. But focus can’t happen in a vacuum. There are too many voices with too many persuasive arguments clamoring like email spam or celebrity paparazzi. I need the perspective of the past and the future to inform the present. To help me sort through the voices. To find my own voice in the tumult and then to speak up and declare what I choose for today.
Catch up on the entire Strategic Planning series here.
Yesterday and tomorrow help us choose a better today.
In this week’s podcast conversation, Claudia and I discuss how we have freed ourselves to focus on the present. Reflectively learning from the past and actively designing the future frees me up to laser focus on the present.
Instead of being buffeted from all sides by the demands of the moment, my perspective provides criteria for making choices. Criteria enable us to rank priorities. Priorities enable us to schedule tasks.
How would it affect your schedule if your busyness were actually a symptom of being overwhelmed?
The Question of the Week is offered to increase awareness of one’s personal leadership practices and encourage experimentation with creative alternatives.
In the best spirit of No Excuses Leadership™, I’m delighted to find Lisa Haneberg over at Management Craft suggesting that leaders might recognize for themselves when it’s time to move on.
My favorite Question of the Week for leaders to ask themselves is: “How might you be a part of the problem that won’t go away?” I like it so much because it points to the heart of leadership effectiveness, which is self-awareness. Knowing how you show up at work and the impact your presence, actions and words have on others.
“Be WITH the team, or change teams,” Lisa exhorts. So many of us make the mistake of making our own vantage point our sole frame of reference for evaluating the big picture. But a vantage point is just that… one point among many. Is it because we have more power that we get to let ourselves off the hook and blame the team for missed goals, petty in-fighting, or poor customer service?
I think not. The leader is always ultimately responsible for what happens on the ground. No excuses.
If we haven’t talked recently about the challenges you are currently facing, let’s do so. Give a call or shoot me an email. Your contribution is too important to ignore.
A good sign that I need some space. Fortunately, it’s Saturday and with the kids off from school, I won’t be able to pick up my work if I wanted to.
There are other times, though, when I’m so full of new ideas and unfinished projects and return calls to make that I can barely see straight. It’s when I feel like there are no options that I have learned there is one option I must be sure to act on.
Get some space.
A long walk along the beach will usually do it. The salty breeze, the endless horizon, the simple colors of blue water, white foam and brown sand. The space creates room inside me for the dreams and responsibilities, feelings and tasks, relationships and deadlines to move around and reorder themselves.
Not a conscious exercise but a hidden phenomenon taking place in the background while I am otherwise occupied ducking an errant frisbee or digging for sand crabs or counting sailboats.
I then go back to work. And am ready to do so, because I go with refocused eyes and a refreshed heart.
In this week’s podcast conversation, we find ourselves hungry to benefit from our past decisions. Instead of a black and white, right or wrong, success or failure, credit or blame mindset, we adopt a stance of attentiveness and action.
Crucial to effective strategic planning is the capacity to learn from the past.
We pay attention to what is and is not working and adjust continually. In smaller, more frequent increments, it is easier to learn, change course, recover from mistakes, seize new opportunities, etc.
But only if the past is a source of rich learning. It’s the difference between knowing more and knowing better, capacity versus capability, facts or wisdom.
How might you transform performance reviews from dreaded evaluations to welcomed learning opportunities?
The Question of the Week is offered to increase awareness of one’s personal leadership practices and encourage experimentation with creative alternatives.
