Focus Accountability

In February, I blogged about the need to get a focus for 2014 (click here). Maybe you have a theme or a focus that you had determined for yourself at that time. Are you still focused on it? Has it stayed in your consciousness?

Mine, if you recall, was PROFILE.  This was the year to focus on building my profile in the marketplace, and it is amazing what opportunities have presented themselves. And it’s amazing that I have chosen to follow up on opportunities (because of my theme) that I might not have last year – and that has led me to new and exciting places – for example, the writing I have been doing for Why Fitness Magazine (click here to view) and how that has led me to expand my work more into Brain Fitness and Brain Peak Performance.

So, focus is important. Having a clear focus gives instructions to your Reticular Activating System (RAS) – the part of your brain that decides whether to pay attention to, or ignore, data in your environment. I told my RAS to look for opportunities to raise my profile – and it did. If you don’t provide the instructions for your RAS, it will make random choices on what data or information to draw your attention to and you may miss things or head off in a different direction too easily.

As a leader, your job is three-fold.  You need to:

1.  SET the focus for you and your team

2. KEEP you and your team paying attention to that focus

3. HOLD yourself and your team ACCOUNTABLE to that focus

We are pretty good at the first one, not too bad on the second, and usually quite terrible on the third! I have several clients who employ me to do those three things:  help them to determine and agree on what their focus needs to be, meet with them regularly to keep them focused on the end goal, and be the tough outsider who holds them accountable to those that focus – and of course help them to celebrate the inevitable wins!

Our reticence to engage in debate and confrontation, our empathy and compassion (is that an explanation or an excuse!), our human ability to get distracted by novel and more interesting stuff, and our sheer ‘I’m too busyness’ means that our well-intentioned projects or tasks often lose their way, or just peter out.

This is true in conversations, meetings, projects, and careers!

You might like to reflect for a moment on whether you and your team have a clear focus….whether you are keeping to it…..and whether you have accountability measures in place to ensure you are all travelling in the same direction.

If you can do this, you might be amazed at what you and your team can achieve. Let me know if you need some help with this mindSHIFT and I’d be most happy to oblige!

In the meantime I would love to hear your thoughts and experiences via our Facebook page. Click here to link to it.

Michelle

 

 

 

 

 

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