You go where you look.
This is something they told me in driving school when I was 16. If you are going off the road and you look at a tree, you’ll tend to steer the car into the tree. If you look at the grass it is more likely you will steer onto the grass. This is true because when we get into stressful situations our reasoning skills are greatly diminished and we rely on the mechanics and connection between our eyes and hands that we have developed our whole lives.
When we occupy positions of power and authority we have the ability to steer the ship more than anyone else. What we focus on will either guide the company and the people into a good place or a not so good place.
Now at this point, if you have read or listened to any leadership material in your time, what I am saying sounds suspiciously like the “Law of Attraction”. In some ways it kind of is. A true application of the LoA is not a passive wishing, yes it starts with the mind and its focus, but then it is followed by actions.
If I want to focus on consistency in drink quality across the cafe then I need to enter each day determined to think about that goal and look for areas that need improvement, areas that work well and need bolstering, tools to help me achieve my goal etc. When I am focused, the solutions problems and solutions start to present themselves and we start to create momentum in the direction of the goal. It happens so naturally that it seems like magic. In reality we were just steering the ship based on where we determined our vision would focus.
As we look to the new year with hope we cannot allow ourselves to do so in passivity. Purposeful attention and focus followed by consistent actions over time is how we actualize the change we want to see.
So let’s start the new year by determining that we will use our focus as a tool to achieve specific and positive outcomes.
-Chris
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