Is Your Focus Shaping the RIGHT Focus?

Clarity, Focus, and Momentum are at the heart of my 1-2-3 Step Up System for ambitious achievement. Today, let’s focus on FOCUS.

A lack of focus causes you to feel frenzied or frustrated due to a lack of direction in what you are trying to accomplish or because you're uncertain about how to get to where you want to go. This results in sporadic action or insufficient action toward a desired outcome.

Eventually, chaos and confusion explode, spreading like wildfire. Energy is depleted and you give up on (or at least stall out with) your pursuit of dreams and ambitions. Have you ever experienced the challenge of being unfocused?

Many leaders, professionals, and entrepreneurs know exactly what I'm talking about. Some may say, “Okay, I’ll just focus more or focus better.” But that is not the answer.

I was working with James on his desire to be an esteemed leader. He wanted to help his team members excel and make meaningful contributions to organizational success. He had clarity about the impact he wanted to make. His purpose was clear, he generally understood what processes he would need to address, and his communication about his desire was enthusiastic.

However, as we progressed in our work together and began shaping his focus it became apparent that his critical thinking ability was limited. Critical thinking is an important component of strategic thinking, the first dimension of focus. He was not making the connection between people, processes, and organizational needs. Consequently, he was struggling with low employee morale, decreased productivity, and failure to achieve organizational goals.

He looked at things intellectually, but not intuitively. I knew I had to help him develop his intuitive strength through critical thinking. This became the basis for our initial strategic planning effort for the second dimension of focus. We began doing weekly exercises to strengthen that ability.

Through intentional questioning techniques I began to uncover his challenges with communication and decision-making skills that created distrust. His lack of innovation and understanding of organizational functions also began to surface. Armed with this understanding, it allowed us to progress to a secondary strategic planning activity, thus extending the second dimension of focus further.

This time, we focused on the root cause of the challenges he needed to overcome. After working with him for a year, he had built up considerable trust on his team, he was engaging in productive conversations in manager meetings, and he had been accepted into an advanced leadership development program that would help him continue to build higher level skills.

As you can see, it’s important to understand not just focus, but the TWO dimensions of focus to maximize the benefits of both. If the important elements of either dimension are overlooked, it will compromise your ability to bridge to momentum.

The two dimensions of focus include strategic thinking and strategic planning. Strategic thinking is a mental process that emphasizes generating ideas and exploring possibilities toward a desired outcome. Strategic planning is a physically tangible process that focuses on cementing actionable plans with specific steps that make the overall focus compelling.

Strategic thinking is more intuitive and creative. It expands a previously conceived direction or vision for one’s business, life, or leadership for more in-depth development to make it come to fruition. Strategic planning is a systematic process with clear steps for defining goals, allocating resources, and monitoring progress. It delivers a detailed roadmap to achieve the remarkable outcomes you envision.

So, the descriptions above clarify the differences for activating the processes and outcomes of the two dimensions. What’s important to recognize is that if you fail to exercise your strategic thinking at the highest level it will compromise your strategic planning efforts.

The strategic thinking activities I did with James initially guided us to create not one, but two targeted strategic plans. Those plans enabled James to enhance his leadership capability to work towards becoming a more esteemed leader over time.

The three capabilities for improving your focus with strategic thinking include your ability to Eliminate Distractions, Practice Critical Thinking, and Prioritize What Matters Most. Of these three capabilities, like James, I find many of my clients need the most guidance with establishing their critical thinking capabilities.

Critical thinking is both intellectual and intuitive. It enables you to exercise deep concentration for deep work. The good news is that your critical thinking capability can be developed.