The FOCUS Exercise for Business Leaders
Three Questions and a Short-list
There are very few things more essential for the success of a business leader than Focus.
Yet there are so many forces in the world making that increasingly hard to achieve...
The Enemies?
Uncertainty, distraction, overwhelming information, and having too much to do can combine to turn our life and leadership into a blurry mess!
One that becomes a frustrating existence filled with missed goals, disappointment, and recurring regret.
The Quick Solution:
Here’s a quick exercise we can all do in just a few minutes to defeat those enemies.
To lead with focus now, and maintain it to succeed as the year goes on.
Answer three questions:
What is your leadership intent this year?
What impact will you have on your team’s development and productivity?
What wins do you want to achieve?
What failures or struggles do you want to avoid or overcome?
Once you've done that...
List your priorities for the year and the next quarter for:
Improving productivity
Improving your leadership
Improving others
With your intentions clear and your priorities set, you can ignore the noise and lead with focus.
Tip: Put your answers where you will read them before you plan each week.
Starting with your intentions and priorities makes you the wind. Not the windsock.
Want more?
Here are those questions again about your leadership intent, unpacked, with some helpful additional comments.
High-level. How do you want to make the earth move for your team and business?
1. What impact will you have on your team’s development and productivity?
Will they - or how will they - be better this year for having worked with you?
If you don’t have a team, how will you impact your client’s development and productivity?
This is perhaps the highest calling of a leader. Not just to get things done. But to:
Make. Others. Better.
How will you be striving to improve their collective capability?
Their ability to function and win as a team.
Years from now, will they feel like they were part of something really special, having worked with you?
Are there improvements you can help specific people to achieve?
What’s your intention?
You have the potential to change and improve lives. How will you use it?
2. What wins do you want to achieve?
What specific goals or milestones would you like to accomplish?
Perhaps with growth, profitability, new business, client retention, market share, or increasing enterprise value?
3. What failures or struggles do you want to avoid or overcome?
Don’t be dealing with the same issues in 6 months that you are now.
Write them down - and either steer clear or find a way to put them out of your misery.
With that done, List your priorities in three key categories.
A. How can you improve Productivity this year and this quarter?
B. How will you improve your Leadership this year and this quarter? And,
C. What can you do today, this week, and this year, to improve others?
Conclusion:
Use this simple Focus Exercise to list your intentions and priorities…
To get more of what you want and less of what you don’t - this year.
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“What you choose to focus on becomes your reality.” - Jen Sincero”
