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Re: An independent frame of mind

A mind is a terrible thing to waste! And whether wasted by dissolute pursuits or wasted by a million little interruptions, it is wasted, just the same.

At the turn of the year I write about personal reflection. This note is about preserving the capability for reflection.

Lately I’ve noted the incursion of technology into the mind space of the presidents, executives and professionals I advise. They, with so many others, feel at the beck and call of anyone who can dial a cell phone number.

Email is similarly imperious and invasive. Both it and voicemail operate according to the “deemed latest information” rule. The intended receiver is expected to have digested and adapted to the content of whatever I just hurled into your mailbox – voice or electronic. So hyper vigilance and constant checking have become a new paranoia.

I know folks aren’t becoming this way because they really want to. Accelerating technology has raised the collective expectation of availability. So people live with the apparent threat that, if they cannot be immediately contacted when the notion comes into a client’s mind, opportunity will flow elsewhere. How real is that threat? And what is the cost of being ruled by it?

When someone is swamped in the present, they are not as able to set up longer term, more highly leveraged structures that make a bigger difference in the future. Claiming space for an independent frame of mind is highly indicative of a potent executive future.

Now, lots of people scream, “There won’t be a future doing what you’re suggesting! All the opportunity will have gone by while you’re off line!”

Well, I beg to differ. I say the claiming of

• uncontaminated mind space
• room for imagination, and
• attention span

is a modern necessity and its lack a modern catastrophe.

Our management structures mean that the higher you rise up the totem pole - the greater the ramifications of what you decide. You are expected to deal skillfully and farsightedly with the more complex issues. How can that be done without claiming the mental space in which to perform?

An externally vigilant and hurry up context is not the ideal environment for solving these more intractable problems. Oh, I know we prize speed and responsiveness. But, as my work has moved to advising higher levels of executives (or as my clients have moved up in their worlds), I have been taken by the atmosphere of quiet deliberation - the space and time - that attends some very effective people at high levels of responsibility.

When you come into their space, there is no rush. There are no watches being kept for immediate ambush. There is plenty of availability to attend to what they are placed there to deal with. They are not hassled; there is no hurry-up. Grace, good manners, even a courtliness characterize the tone and spirit they bring to work. These people have an uncontaminated life and are on top of their world. My bet is that their decisions and thoughts are reflective of the context they have engineered around themselves.

I’m not just making a cranky rant here. I am speaking at a time of year when reflection is possible. From that perspective, I am urging a clawback of some free mental space to think with matters beyond (as Covey would put it) the urgent and (relatively) unimportant.

The quiet and peace that settle over a think time or a discussion that has significance is palpable. When we deal effectively and deliberately with what matters, a calm prevails and time stands still. I believe this is the zone of true executive performance.

It is the attention span claim that is most important to make. Interruption kills flow. Sustained attention is absolutely indispensable for leveraged work.

Maybe it is

• Learning – in a whole piece – some new element of the emerging context that you must calibrate your business to.
• Creating a piece of software or a system that will enable a jump in capability
• Crafting an intervention into a key business relationship – a sale or a service issue

High value activity needs to be pushed forward until the whole thing has been delivered. Interruption just means having to take three steps back and starting again. Often precious thoughts that came up when in flow are lost forever. Bailing out of concentration or a key discussion to scan an email or field a cell call is a totally misguided expenditure of mental investment. The value of what could have been delivered compared to what was gained by engaging in the other – there’s no comparison.

The impact comes from holding myself in a sustained task, staying collected until the problem is solved instead of indulging in what is little more than entertainment. It’s an addiction to “news”, and it has the same value as other addictions. Worse, a senior leader becomes no more than a cog in a wheel – a stimulus – response junkie.

The punch line? Claim and protect your mental space, and through that your connection to what is important, meaningful and significant in the year to come. One way is to set a power hour – one hour a day of uninterrupted time. That way you can be free to do the sustained work that will move you closer to achieving your destiny.

Very best for a great year in business,

Doug Bouey

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