Five Strategies to Maintain Your Focus

While it is easy for managers to start out with the best of intentions, many can be detoured by the uncontrollable events impacting their professional lives and company. When a crisis occurs, there is a tendency to immediately confront the challenge. While well-intentioned and often necessary, managers should not allow this thinking to cause them to lose focus on their goals and development.

Maintaining a results-oriented focus takes discipline and perseverance in the face of constant interruptions that demand both the manager’s time and attention. If managers are focused in their thinking, it must be strategic in nature, focusing on the long-term growth of the business rather than on the problem or crisis demanding their immediate attention. The ultimate solution to every problem must fit into the long-term goals of the manager.

It is important for managers to grasp that maintaining a focus on long-term goals and objectives and attaining a desired outcome is the result of doing the right things, at the right time, and in the right sequence. Often managers allow uncontrollable events and problems to make them lose sight of or even abandon their long-term plan and goals.

Managers who want to successfully maintain a results-oriented focus that allows them to consistently achieve their goals and desired outcomes must:

Develop Mental Discipline

Successful managers have developed the mental discipline that keeps them focused on their goals regardless of the problems and uncontrollable events they may encounter. Such hurdles must be overcome on the path to the successful accomplishment of their objectives.

Mental discipline allows managers to always keep an eye on their goals. They consistently keep the summit of the mountain in view, and do not allow daily problems to impede their progress. While daily problems may cause a setback, managers always make sure they are moving forward one step at a time.

Managers should understand that the attainment of mental discipline takes a conscious effort and perseverance. While not an easy road, it is achievable.

Adopt Strategic Thinking

To achieve and maintain a results-oriented focus, managers must learn to take a protracted view of their business, which means acquiring and polishing strategic thinking skills. These skills allow managers to create their focus and form part of their personal vision—the top of the mountain—in the first place.

The long view is opposed to tactical thinking that focuses only on short-term day-to-day activities. As companies evolve, many are empowering their employees and delegating the tactical activities lower in the organization. Employees assume much of the day-to-day decision making that directly impacts their performance and relationships with customers.

Plan

While strategic thinking was considered passé and outmoded during the heyday of the dot coms, it is now clear that a lack of planning contributed mightily to their downfall. Successful managers develop a realistic plan, work the plan and stick to it. It is a simple concept, yet does require discipline.

A great deal of a plan’s success lies in its execution. Many managers develop excellent plans, but, because they have not properly executed and held to them, fail to see their fruits. The best plans are not complex instruments, but simple and designed to be easily and effectively carried out.

Question Activities

Many managers have a natural tendency to want to control everything within their sphere of influence. Yet it is this desire that causes many to lose focus on their long-range plan as they attempt to personally put out every fire and handle every issue.

As leaders, managers must empower their employees and delegate the tasks, assignments and responsibilities that do not advance them toward the attainment of their desired outcomes. In this light, every activity on their to-do list and calendar must be questioned on a consistent basis; if a particular pursuit does not advance the manager toward the accomplishment of their goals, it should either be delegated or eliminated.

Monitor Results

Successful managers tie the metrics that measure their unit’s progress directly to their plans. They then determine the frequency and content of the report that allows them to actively monitor progress toward their own and the organization’s goals.

Additionally, managers have flags built into their metrics that immediately signal potential problems when the numbers reported to them are outside normal ranges. The report allows them to quickly act and resolve the problem before it gets out of hand.

Excerpt: Professional Development: Pinpoint Management Skill Development Training Series (Majorium Business Press, 2011) $ 17.95 USD

If you would like to learn more about how to become a more effective manager, refer to Professional Development: Pinpoint Management Skill Development Training Series. This training skill-pack features eight key interrelated concepts, each with their own discussion points and training activity. It is ideal as an informal training tool for coaching or personal development. It can also be used as a handbook and guide for group training discussions. Click here to learn more.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Timothy F. Bednarz, Ph.D.
Author
Publisher
Majorium Business Press
Author of Great! What Makes Leaders Great: What They Did, How They Did It and What You Can Learn From It. Copyright © 2012 Timothy F. Bednarz, All Rights Reserved