Focus is far more precious as a resource than many people realize. There are so many things competing for our attention, many of which we tolerate or even encourage. We recognize two main types – personal focus and organizational focus. That said there is also the concept of presence as complementary dimension of focus. In this context presence is the super-power that amplifies focus when you are fully present in a collaborative situation and actively participating and contributing. Both focus and presence require freedom from distractions that would otherwise harm performance, productivity and quality of outcomes.
With Personal Focus it is all about your ability to be in the zone and fully focused on what you are trying to accomplish. When you are in the zone it can be like bullet time from The Matrix in that you are in sync with time and space and are able to accomplish amazing things. Time passes in strange ways, making it seem like hours are mere minutes. Learning how to get into the zone and stay there as long as possible is an art in and of itself. Master personal focus and you will do incredible things on a regular basis. We will cover this in more detail elsewhere.
When it comes to Flow Engineering, we are more concerned with the other type – organizational focus. We like to pair the North Star concept with Flow Engineering. In a nutshell North Star sets the one high level organizational goal that every part of the org needs to be moving towards, contributing to and aligned with. It serves as the focusing lens and filter to ensure that effort either does or does not align with your North Star. Flow Engineering then helps further to optimize a process with an even more extreme focus on an individual target improvement. Ideally the target improvement contributes to that North Star goal otherwise, why are you doing it?
As humans we have a tough time focusing these days and regularly allow ourselves to be distracted on a regular basis. Context switching costs us dearly as we shift focus from one thing to another. On the other hand, avoiding the distractions enables better focus and thus increased performance regardless of what you are doing.
Companies often have similar problems with focus and alignment. In many cases people, teams or even divisions apply well intentioned effort toward things that don’t align with what the company needs most right now. That might pay off down the road, but you may not get down the road without nailing the things that matter most now. Again, North Star can help define what matters most and Flow Engineering targets a beneficial improvement. Stack up several of these relevant improvements and your North Star becomes closer, easier, cheaper, faster, …
Stats involving costs associated with lost focus
- Workplace distractions cost the US economy $588 Billion annually. – ReasonField.com
- On average, employees switch tasks every 3 minutes and it can take over 20 minutes to regain the full focus of each. – ReasonField.com
- Globally the economic cost of lost focus is estimated to be $1.4 Trillion. – Dropbox.com
- Improved performance through multitasking is a myth with tasks taking 50% longer to complete and tend to have 50% more errors resulting in rework – Psychology Today
- Rapidly switching between tasks for long periods of time drains mental energy leading to fatigue and inability to focus. – Nfil.net
Flow Engineering triggers affecting focus
This article on Focus is part 3 of our series covering Flow Engineering triggers with emphasis on the relation to risk management. By now it should be clear that lack of focus represents a significant business threat. Focus may not be among things commonly referred to as risk but the lack of it can devastate the ability to compete effectively. As such it represents a form of risk that many overlook. Let us explore how Flow Engineering influences these obstacles to alignment in more detail in the table below.
| Situations/Observations | How Flow Engineering applies |
|---|---|
| We frequently have to deal with the crisis-de-jour and have no formal improvement or risk management effort. | High Level: We only allow for the capacity to do what we do. No effort is available to improve or eliminate risks. So, we opt to play whack a mole and smite problems with then occur. In the trenches: The context switching required to deal with frequent crises is deleterious in many ways. When a team is obligated to switch gears to deal with a crisis a great deal of focus and inertia is lost. While the focus can be restored in time that original inertia is gone forever. |
| We often are expected to implement knee jerk reactions to market or industry events. These might be good, but context switching is disruptive and even detrimental to performance and morale. | High Level: Our leaders have their finger on the pulse of the industry. We have done well to get where we are, but now we are hyper reactive to every change being considered. They may not realize all of the costs associated with shelving work in progress in order to pursue the next holy grail. In the trenches: This can have a big impact on morale and performance when lack of focus from the top translates to frequently shifting priorities in the trenches. |
| Our meetings are not very productive because people are distracted in various ways. | High Level: This is often a cultural thing that if left unchecked can do more harm than good. Meetings for the sake of meetings is generally bad, but a well-structured meeting for a real informative or collaborative purpose can do wonders. Consider the time and resources involved the costs can be extreme and the value derived limited. If this is a problem, then it could be an interesting Flow Engineering improvement opportunity. Not only would this have significant lasting benefits but would help pull leaders through the Flow Engineering process and help to them how to walk the walk. In the trenches: Don’t waste my time with a meeting that could have been an email. This meeting took me away from doing something important that you wanted done and it will take time to endure the meeting and get back to where I was. |
| We want to improve but it feels like we are trying to boil the ocean with a major improvement initiative. | High Level: Despite best intentions a major organizational change can be devastating. Often pushed from the top down these are expensive and invasive and could take years to realize the projected benefits. Smaller incremental targeted changes bring about rapid results. During the same period several small improvements will outpace projected gains of a major effort and have more immediate value added. In the trenches: Often these efforts are met with confusion as to why and tend to trigger various degrees of resistance. The smaller improvements called for in Flow Engineering involve richer collaboration with the people that know the situation best. Thier inclusion eliminates the friction, and expertise helps to improve the results with more precise focus on the most valuable improvement to explore. |
Focus and presence are so essential that we have several other NRM articles involving focus.
There are dozens more related triggers no doubt that we can add over time. Please add your situations below and we can either respond to them or add them to the list above.
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