On my way to take the kids to the dentist the other day, a black, late-model sedan caught my attention. Nothing special or fancy about this car, it just behaved oddly. It drifted off its lane, it made sudden jerks, and it's late in hitting the breaks. As I get closer, I immediately noticed why it behaved that way.
The person behind the wheel had her cell phone pressed between her left ear and her left shoulder, her left hand on the steering wheel, and her right hand carrying a coffee mug. It wasn't even one of those closed-lid, travel mugs. It's a lidless porcelain coffee mug, the one that can be found in almost every household in America. Shortly after I noticed a "baby on board" sign, I saw her rest her mug on the dashboard and then reached back to a car seat to grab a formula bottle. Outside side of the obvious safety concerns in this scenario, I’m sure this person’s a great caregiver, a good driver, an engaging person to talk to, and a talented coffee connoisseur—however, doing all those things altogether diminishes her capacity to do well in each of those tasks.
Multi-tasking has never been something I believed in. The thought of doing several, unrelated tasks at the same time and working at a certain percent above your maximum capacity just unsustainable. You can probably make it work at the beginning, but you’ll definitely crash and fail in the long-run.
Leadership, in my humble opinion (IMHO), requires focusing on things that matter—your values, your mission, and the people you lead, influence, and serve.
By no means am I even half-decent when it comes to efficiency and productivity. I’m also well aware that I can’t consistently do a good job even if I do things one at a time. Focus, to me, is not simply that. To me, focus also means doing things coherently, not just randomly doing unrelated items one at a time. Creating proper transitions to different activities allow your brain to also adjust to new environments which would allow it to perform optimally. That’s like working at a brightly lit room, then having to move in a dark room, then back. In order to finish a task with exceptional results, complete and undeterred focus is required.
Focusing plays an important role In becoming an effective leader. A senior executive in our company describes this as compartmentalizing. Being one of his leadership values, he explains that compartmentalizing is the ability to apply laser focus on a specific task and when dealing with people.
Leadership, in my humble opinion (IMHO), requires focusing on things that matter—your values, your mission, and the people you lead, influence, and serve.