There is a lot to be said in favour of focus. In business, the general accepted wisdom is that if you focus you can achieve better, faster results and avoid wasting time and resources. Focus on your upcoming challenges, on the short- term objective, on picking the right markets and customers and things will work out best for you. Sportsmen call it “being in the zone”, and the general consensus is that focus equals good.
In photography of course focus is as important as in business, although not as much as it used to be. Technology, and specifically the autofocus feature of all digital cameras, have somehow downgraded its importance, relegating it from make-it-or-break-it feature to just a normal one. You can still select which part of the subject you want to focus on, and even manually override your camera’s focus controls of course, but in reality the large majority of us just let the machine do the work for us. Whilst with film the out-of-focus picture was always lurking around the corner, with digital it has become a rarity. Amateur photographers around the world are thankful to technology for that.
Out of focus pictures however can sometimes be very useful and even informative. By directing the viewer’s attention away from the subject, they can better express, for example, colour patterns and compositional texture, or provide emotional accent and basic special effects.
The business focus on what’s most pressing, or is directly ahead, whilst generally positive, can however often result in dangerous and undesired outcomes: the development of tunnel vision.
Think about driving a vehicle. Everybody knows that you must focus on what’s ahead on the road. At the same time, though, you also need to check your side-view and rear-view mirrors regularly, as well as get an appreciation of what the other drivers, pedestrians and general tra c are doing all around you. And naturally you have to adjust your speed to make sure that the projected trajectory of your car is not going to collide with other vehicles or objects.
Similarly, at work it’s good to look ahead and concentrate on one thing at a time, but you should make sure you never neglect paying attention to what’s going on around you. In fact, that’s exactly where many of the interesting or disrupting things usually happen: on the fringe.
Focus is required because through focus you make sure you give all your attention and best effort to the task at hand -- big or small. But you need to make sure that by focusing you don’t overlook or miss the big picture altogether.
Tunnel vision is dangerous not only because it can cause disorientation and dizziness, but because it creates a false sense of certainty, of inevitability almost. It limits your ability to put what you are doing in a broader context, and it limits your options for steering or applying changes to your direction.
So should you always start a discussion or a business initiative being 100% focused? I think you should not. I believe that you need to start by getting a general appreciation for what’s going on: players, extended ecosystem, changing priorities at play and the general dynamics of the business.
If you start being completely focused, you may miss indicators that if picked up early enough will actually make you focus better at a later stage, and improve the outcome of what you do.
Horses that wear blinkers will not stray from the established path or direction, but become defenceless to attacks coming from the sides. Being a prey by nature, a horse forcefully focused on what’s ahead will actually be more vulnerable to predators. In other words, focus can mark the difference between life and death.
Finally, focusing too much or too early can also cause anxiety because it makes it easier for others to take you by surprise. Life, and business life particularly, is tough, and there are so many concurrent things happening at the same time, with a very real potential impact on our actions and decisions, that we simply cannot afford to be too much focused on one thing at a time.
Learn from nature and from life: look at the game-changing information at the periphery of your view and make sure you focus only after taking in all the available “light” through your personal lens.
Out of focus pictures however can sometimes be very useful and even informative. By directing the viewer’s attention away from the subject, they can better express, for example, colour patterns and compositional texture, or provide emotional accent and basic special effects.
The business focus on what’s most pressing, or is directly ahead, whilst generally positive, can however often result in dangerous and undesired outcomes: the development of tunnel vision.
Think about driving a vehicle. Everybody knows that you must focus on what’s ahead on the road. At the same time, though, you also need to check your side-view and rear-view mirrors regularly, as well as get an appreciation of what the other drivers, pedestrians and general tra c are doing all around you. And naturally you have to adjust your speed to make sure that the projected trajectory of your car is not going to collide with other vehicles or objects.
Similarly, at work it’s good to look ahead and concentrate on one thing at a time, but you should make sure you never neglect paying attention to what’s going on around you. In fact, that’s exactly where many of the interesting or disrupting things usually happen: on the fringe.
Focus is required because through focus you make sure you give all your attention and best effort to the task at hand -- big or small. But you need to make sure that by focusing you don’t overlook or miss the big picture altogether.
Tunnel vision is dangerous not only because it can cause disorientation and dizziness, but because it creates a false sense of certainty, of inevitability almost. It limits your ability to put what you are doing in a broader context, and it limits your options for steering or applying changes to your direction.
So should you always start a discussion or a business initiative being 100% focused? I think you should not. I believe that you need to start by getting a general appreciation for what’s going on: players, extended ecosystem, changing priorities at play and the general dynamics of the business.
If you start being completely focused, you may miss indicators that if picked up early enough will actually make you focus better at a later stage, and improve the outcome of what you do.
Horses that wear blinkers will not stray from the established path or direction, but become defenceless to attacks coming from the sides. Being a prey by nature, a horse forcefully focused on what’s ahead will actually be more vulnerable to predators. In other words, focus can mark the difference between life and death.
Finally, focusing too much or too early can also cause anxiety because it makes it easier for others to take you by surprise. Life, and business life particularly, is tough, and there are so many concurrent things happening at the same time, with a very real potential impact on our actions and decisions, that we simply cannot afford to be too much focused on one thing at a time.
Learn from nature and from life: look at the game-changing information at the periphery of your view and make sure you focus only after taking in all the available “light” through your personal lens.