Keeping People Focused
During a coaching conversation with a middle manager recently, it became obvious that she was doing her best to stay focused on critical deliverables, but finding it difficult - with conflicting priorities, compounding demands from various stakeholders and finite resources.
Trying to push forward, progress was slow, her people continually returning with new versions of the same problem. Their language, conversations and stress points hadn't shifted, even though there had been countless meetings, everyone was working hard and KPI's were top of mind.
What this manager didn't understand at the time was that trying to fix the problem, was actually the problem. She was attempting to inspire creativity, new levels of efficiency and innovation by focusing on the problem. Seems quite rational, but there's a very good reason why this approach brings diminishing returns.
FIXING IS LIMITING
When we're focused on fixing a problem, we limit ourselves to the problem - it's the same paradigm of thinking. In this state, we're attempting to push the past away but without realising it, we drag it along with us. It's like the discarded chewy on the pavement...once we've stepped on it, it's difficult to remove.
This 'fixing' state achieves linear improvement at best, it's a slow burn that burns people out.
- Leaders and managers become frustrated.
- People feel under-utilised.
- Business targets are more difficult to achieve.
- Everyone works harder and longer.
FROM PAST TO FUTURE
Keeping our people focused on the right things in ways that leverage finite resources requires a shift from fixing problems (past based) to living forward into an inspiring future created on purpose and with intention.
It's the very opposite to what our stressed brain thinks is logical. We're convinced that to fix a problem we need to hone in, try harder, hold an even tighter reign and narrow our focus.
But when we let go the strangling grip and make the shift from fixing the past to imagining a future, our minds can open up to new thinking. New ideas become available that weren't accessible before.
It's the same feeling as taking a long drive on the open road. As our mind softens and drifts a little, the grip on our problems loosens and our focus naturally expands.
Suddenly, brilliant ideas, resolutions, clarity on direction or purpose begin floating in. We give credit to the open road, but it's the shift we've allowed in our brain chemistry that's the true alchemist.
FOCUSING IS ABOUT OPENING
To assist this middle manager to lift out of her disempowered, less than productive state, I asked her some simple questions. These questions and the way I asked them, moved her mind from focusing on everything about the problem, to a new future and how she wanted that area of her responsibility to be. As she allowed herself to imagine the new future, her mind loosened its grip and her energy changed from frustration and limitation (narrow focus) to inspiration and possibility (peripheral focus).
This process (see below for the formula) helped her to emotionally connect with what it would be like to experience the new future, a place where the current problem didn't exist. Once she was able to engage with this future, new thinking began pouring in.
In what seemed like magic to her, in a very short time she was identifying and capturing ideas she'd never thought of. She was self-empowered, clear and ready to take new action.
A FORMULA FOR FOCUSING
If you'd like to assist your team to elevate out of a problem they're stuck in and into a new solution, here's a simple (yet highly nuanced) formula. I encourage you to give it a go, be present in the conversation, listen and let them find the answers...
STEP ONE - Elevate them out of the problem
Ask WHAT your team member wants to create - shift their focus from past/present to future. For example:
"Explain to me how you want this to be/operate/work"
"Put yourself 3 months ahead, what's happening in 3 months that's not happening now?"
"If you could design this from a blank slate, how would you want it to be?"
STEP TWO - Engage them in the future
Ask WHY they want to be in this future - support them to become emotionally engaged with this new future...(hot tip - as their leader/coach, you MUST be willing to be in the future with them when you ask them this question, it's your state of being that will give them permission to engage with a future that doesn't yet exist).
For example:
"What's the most important part of creating this future for you?"
"What's exciting to you about this future?"
"What's the ripple effect of this future? Why is that important to you?"
STEP 3 - Owning the now
Only when you think they are fully present to, engaged with and inspired by the future, bring them to the 'now' and ask them WHERE they are now - being accountable for the current situation will be a completely different experience for them now. For example:
"Now that you know how you want it to be and why, where are you/the team right now?"
"What's happening right now that you didn't see before?"
"What's the common denominator here?"
Invest a few minutes and drill down with questions to help them get specific on the current landscape. This will help them see new opportunities for bridging the gaps.
Let go and let them run with their new ideas. They will be empowered, inspired and confident to move forward.
ELEVATE YOURSELF
The most challenging piece about this process for leaders is elevating themselves out of the problem, because they think if they let go, even for a moment, things will spiral further out of control.
But the innovative thinking required to move toward a new future is only inspired from a state of freedom, possibility and unlimited thinking. This state isn't available to us when we're honed in with narrow focus on the problem.
Helping people stay focused on their critical deliverables needs leaders and managers to take a helicopter view and hold a clear intention for the empowerment of their people.
Rather than giving your people the answers to hurry them out of the problem, ask insightful, well-placed questions that connect them with a new future. They will then hurry themselves out of the past because the future is so exciting.
