Focus in a World of Multi-tasking

As a leader, how do you keep your focus in an age of multi-tasking?

Multitasking may speed you through your to-do list, but it also makes you more likely to make mistakes and less likely to retain information. Here are three ways to focus:

• Think good thoughts. Positive emotions improve the brain's executive function and encourage creative and strategic thinking. Improve your emotional balance by taking short breaks and thinking about things that make you happy.
• Ban distractions. Be aware of what steals your attention. When disrupted, make a conscious choice to return to the task at hand.  This may mean shutting off your Blackberry/Smartphone.
• Leave things behind. When you turn to a new task, part of your brain is still thinking about the last one. Before starting something new, go for a walk, climb stairs, or do some deep breathing to clear your head.

Adapted from "Train Your Brain to Focus" by Paul Hammerness, MD, and Margaret Moore.

Embracing Distractors

As a leader, do you encourage or discourage distractors in the workplace?

Recent studies have revealed the productivity cost of interruptions in the workplace. But as the world gets more distracting, can we truly uphold the ideal of undivided attention?   In fact, is undivided attention even desirable?  Not all disruptions are negative. Gazing out the window allows your brain to come up with new ideas or process information. Logging on to social media for a few minutes can give you a much-needed break so you return to work in a better, more productive mood. Instead of barring things that take attention - your own and that of the staff you lead - away from work, try creating and embracing positive interruptions. You might even want to talk with people to find out how they use distractors to help them be more effective in their work.



Adapted from "Three Skills Every 21st-Century Manager Needs" by Andrew L. Molinsky, Thomas H. Davenport, Bala Iyer, and Cathy Davidson.

Getting Comfortable with Collaboration

As a leader, are you truly comfortable with collaboration?

We praise and encourage collaboration for improving problem solving, increasing creativity, and spurring innovation. Done correctly, it does yield all these benefits. But it can also be scary for us as leaders. Here are three facts you have to accept, and embrace, about collaboration before it can work:

• You won't know the answer. There's no point in collaborating on a complex problem if you know how to solve it. Be comfortable with ambiguity and accept that you aren't necessarily the expert.  The wisdom is in the room because it is a collective wisdom.
• Roles will be unclear. Responsibilities are often fluid. Be ready for the role you play to change with each phase of the work.  That said, addressing who is responsible for what can be helpful in moving work forward.  It just doesn't need to be you, as leader, who determines who does what.
• You will fight. If you avoid conflict, nothing will happen. Knowing how to debate tradeoffs between options means knowing how to productively argue.  This may take some practice for the whole group.  Establishing norms for processing different opinions is very helpful.  Effective processes also allow for a range of voices.

Adapted from "Eight Dangers of Collaboration" by Nilofer Merchant.

Thinking Creatively

As a leader, how do you access the most creative thinking when dealing with issues?

Creativity is not genetically encoded. Anyone can learn to think creatively. The key is to use both the left and right hemispheres of the brain: logical and intuitive, respectively. Start by immersing yourself in a problem. Use the logical left side of your brain to understand what you know about the topic. Then switch to the right side by distancing yourself from the issue and mulling over the information. Exercise is a good way to access the visual nature of the right hemisphere. It often leads to an "ah-ha moment" where you see a new solution. Then switch back to the left hemisphere to challenge your creative breakthrough with rational thinking.

All this said, you can also access creative thinking by drawing on the wisdom of your staff.  If it's an issue that requires creative thinking in the workplace then it's an issue that others will care about.  Be sure to include them in the thinking around the issue. If you don't, the only creativity you'll access is your own.  That may be enough in some situations but strong schools/organizations are built on collaborative and collective wisdom, not the thinking of an individual.

Adapted from  "How to Think Creatively" by Tony Schwartz.

What's Wrong?...or...What's possible?

As a leader, do you ask 'What's wrong and how can we fix it?'... or 'What's possible?'

In most organizations, we are trained to ask, "What's wrong?" and "How can we fix it?" This is a demoralizing process, and a typical one. Instead, Dr. Wheatley said, she has learned to ask two very different questions: "What's possible here?" and "Who cares?" When we ask "Who cares?", we invite in others who are also passionate about an issue. And when we ask "What's possible?", it opens us up to unprecedented creativity.


Excerpt from: Turning to One Another
Keynote Address: Kansas Health Foundation 2000 Leadership Institute, Spring 2000
Dr. Margaret Wheatley

Focus and Creativity Matter

If the following is true.....

Leaders in sustained, successful organizations focus on a small number of core priorities, stay on message, and develop others toward the same end, making corrections as new learning occurs (Fullan, 2011).

.......how, as a leader, do you:

• sustain the focus?
• stay on message?
• develop others?
• make corrections as new learning occurs?