Opening the View
I cut my teeth on project management twenty years ago in marketing operations at AT&T, rolling out some of the earliest cellular data services. Our win strategy was predicated on being first to market with innovative technologies. Every project I led was super secretive, super competitive, and super urgent.
While I have a touch of ADD and am wired to hyper focus, this tendency became even more honed as we were challenged to shrink timelines with every launch. In this world I was valued for my ability to short sprint projects out the door.
Like launching a spacecraft to the moon, in my hyper focus everything seemingly non-essential to the goal falls away like spent rocket canisters. Unfortunately for me, and those close to me, sometimes those non-essentials look like sleep, or food, or time with friends and family.
This is a mode of operating that’s been hard to wash out of my bones. Still to this day, I can fall into a hyper focused space even when its rarely needed in my life anymore. As an executive coach my work today is more about building long-term, intimate and trusted relationships than rattling the competition through mass market appeal product launches. Yet habits, especially those that have served and protected us, are hard to let go.
Recently when I felt pressed up against a deadline my daughter called me for dinner. I glanced up from my laptop, told her I had work to do and would eat later. She shook her head and said, “Where did you take my momma? This is not her.”
I’d like to say I dropped what I was doing and came to dinner, but my hyper focus was in full operation. The humbling truth is that my deadline was self-imposed, and I was the only one breathing down my neck. In that moment, I had decided to exchange a deeper connection with my family for whatever work was before me.
I hear from entrepreneurs and executives who struggle similarly. Behaviors that were once critical to their success, and perhaps survival earlier in their career, are no longer needed – yet they’re hard to let go. Balance between driving toward self-imposed goals and connecting deeper with themselves, family, and friends can be elusive.
Often, they find that even when a major milestone has been reached, they can’t stop running. Rest, nutrition, exercise, family and sometimes their own retirement gets pushed to the side because they don’t know how to turn the engine off.
Relentless drive, alertness, and focus can’t be flipped off like a light switch. Much of the work is in learning to slow our bodies down and listen more deeply to what’s triggering us. Slowing down and opening to a wider view invites space for discernment around what levels of pace, effort, and focus are being called for and why.
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Leadership Development Practices to help you engage with these concepts in your own leadership development journey:
Slowing into a Wide View: This week notice if your body starts to tighten into a hyper focused place. If you sense this, try taking a few deep breaths and pulling back from the work for a moment. Maybe take a walk outside or go get a glass of water. In this wider space consider how you are determining what level of pace, effort, and focus is being called for and why?
