Choosing What to Focus On
We have established the importance of focus; however, it is equally important to know what to focus on. You need to select the target of your focus very carefully. A dog might be intensely focused on the car he is chasing but what good does this intense focus bring? He will never be able to run fast enough to keep up with the car. Even if he did catch the car what would he do with it? He might even get run over in the process. This is an example of focus without purpose. It is therefore very important to weigh the purpose of the objective you are focused on to be sure it has some strategic importance.
It is equally important to consider the methods you employ to attain the goal you have in mind. This is made clear in the middle of our passage when it says
“Make level paths for your feet and take only ways that are firm.”
Your focus will be wasted if you make reckless decisions and take unnecessary risks as you pursue your objective. You should look for methods with the highest probability of success and the lowest risk possible.
For example, if you are planning an investment strategy for you retirement savings there are a number if options available to you. You might be inclined to try multiplying your savings quickly by investing in highly leveraged stock options or other types of fancy derivatives. The potential reward with these types of high risk instruments is enormous. The problem is that they are extremely risky. Even if you were fortunate enough to make a few good moves at first and see some spectacular gains the overwhelming likelihood is that your luck will not hold. Sooner or later you will get on the wrong side of these things and your savings could be wiped out.
A shocking example of this principle was made public earlier this year. Jerome Kerviel was a trader at the French investment bank Societe Generale. He wanted to make a name for himself as a brilliant trader so in 2007 he began making increasingly large bets with the firm’s money on the direction of 3 European stock market indices. He bought futures contracts on these indices that essentially represented a bet that the markets would move higher.
At first he made a profit with these risky bets. This early success served to build up his confidence so he began to pump more money into these highly volatile instruments. The problem was that global stock markets had reached a peak in 2007 and were poised at the beginning of what would later turn out to be a very ugly bear market.
As the markets began to head lower Kerviel’s losses began to add up fast. By the time his activities were discovered in January 2008 the losses had exceeded a staggering 8 billion dollars and were threatening to pull the entire firm under.
When the dust settled, the firm had lost nearly all it’s profits, Kerviel lost his job and he was looking at the possibility of being charged with securities fraud. This is why the Bible cautions us to “take only ways that are firm”
I believe that it is best to heed the advice to focus like a laser beam on one attainable, worthwhile goal at a time, employ only sensible methods to reach it and take prudent measures to mitigate any risks that might be involved. If you do this I think you will find yourself making excellent progress on the road to success.
The world of business acronyms, euphemisms and expressions that people use at work can be very confusing so ProsperingServant.com would like to help define the terms you hear on the job by proudly offering the Monday edition of our Watercooler Word of the Day. Today’s word (or in this case phase) is….
Covering for a Co-worker- When a person will be away on vacation or out sick they sometimes ask a co-worker to cover for them. In other words, they are asking a co-worker who is already fully occupied dong his or her own job to either attempt to do both jobs at the same time if that person was already scheduled to be at work or to come in on his or her day off if the person was not originally scheduled to work.
Pop quiz…..What is the most effective way to cause a skilled, hard working, motivated person to fail to achieve a goal? Answer….Distract the person with another goal.
No matter how talented and driven you are there is still a limit to how much work you can complete in a given amount of time. In today’s multitasking world it is all to tempting to try juggling 2, 3 or even 4 tasks at once. You become like a circus performer trying to keep 10 plates spinning at the top of 10 sticks all at the same time. You try to watch all 10 at the same time and anytime one starts to wobble you race over to it and give it another spin. You might even be able to keep this up for awhile. The problem is that it won’t be long before 2 or 3 of them begin to wobble at the same time and there is not enough time to catch them all. The next thing you know, all 10 plates come tumbling down with a loud CRASH and you end up standing in a huge pile of broken pieces.
I believe it is far better to set your sights on a single goal and focus all your efforts toward achieving that goal. Once it is accomplished, you can set your sights on the next goal. We see this principle in the Bible where it advises:
Let your eyes look straight ahead, fix your gaze directly before you. Make level paths for your feet and take only ways that are firm. Do not swerve to the right or the left; keep your foot from evil.
Proverbs 4:25-27
You will always be at your very best when you are fully focused. If light is focused through a magnifying glass it can burn a hole through paper. If it is even more tightly focused into a laser beam it can burn a hole through solid steel. In the same way, you can become more effective by funneling all your physical and mental resources into one goal at a time.
A rather stunning example of the consequences of losing focus and power of regaining it occurred in the 1990’s when Donald Trump nearly lost his entire fortune during a recession. Trump had built up a multi-billion dollar fortune in the 1980’s by developing high-end New York City real estate. He was an expert in this business and his expertise propelled him to the very top of his industry.
Then things started to change. The Trump brand had become so well known that “The Donald” began trying to extend it into a host of other businesses. He tried to expand into the Gaming industry by building not one, not two but three separate Atlantic City casinos. He also got involved in other ventures that had little or nothing to do with real estate. There was the Trump shuttle, various Trump publications and even Trump the board game. His attention was so divided that he lost focus on his core real estate business. He got deeper and deeper into debt and eventually reached the point where many of his businesses could not meet their obligations and became insolvent.
However, this turned out to be a turning point rather than the beginning of the end. Trump unloaded the unprofitable side businesses such as the Trump Shuttle and focused on restructuring the debts of his core holdings. He remained focused on the goal of pulling his real estate empire through the storm and eventually got back on his feet and was successful once again.
Another important skill is knowing which goal to focus on. We’ll take a closer look at that topic in the next post.
I’ll be spending today thanking God for my many blessings and enjoying a good, home cooked meal so no post today. There will be a brand new article tomorrow though so stay tuned and have a great Holiday!
Tags: Thanksgiving
The world of business acronyms, euphemisms and expressions that people use at work can be very confusing so ProsperingServant.com would like to help define the terms you hear on the job by proudly offering the Wednesday edition of our Watercooler Word of the Day. Today’s word is….
Blackberry - A handy, portable device that allows users to check email or surf the Web instead of paying attention during business meetings.
Last time we saw some great ways to become more diligent. Now we’ll take a look at how to apply diligence in your every day work life.
There is a cost to diligence. In order to be truly diligent in a task you will usually have to increase the amount of time you spend on it. Therefore, it is critical to be selective about how much work you take on. In today’s world of multitasking it is tempting to try and handle more and more tasks by limiting the amount of time and individual attention you dedicate to each one. This can lead to poor performance. It is usually better to take on fewer tasks but do them outstandingly well than to race through a larger number of tasks and mess most of them up.
Take a moment to evaluate the cost and the benefit before you start on a new task. Ask yourself if the task is aligned with the strategic goals of your organization, your group or yourself. Does completing this task move you closer to one or more of those objectives or will it only divert time and resources away from them?
It’s a bit like a program designer I once worked with. I gave him very specific requirements for a new program and asked him to come up with a design for it. I also gave him a few smaller, unrelated tasks that required his immediate attention. This fellow was known for his diligence so I had every confidence he could handle all the tasks and bring them in on time.
A few days later I checked in to see what progress had been made. I was very surprised to find I had a full blown, textbook case of diligence run amuck on my hands. It turned out the designer was so excited about this product that he took it upon himself to begin adding a host of extra features that would greatly increase the complexity and cost of the product. Worse yet, these additional bells and whistles were not even useful. He just thought they were cool and he was being thorough by building them in.
This burst of “inspiration” made the design so complex that it was nowhere near finished. Furthermore, because my designer had spent all his time adding in these extras he had not even started on the other tasks that I needed him to work on. We needed to have an immediate meeting to discuss the importance of staying focused and remembering the priorities.
In short, you should reserve your diligent efforts only for those tasks that are worthwhile. Otherwise you might end up doing a really great job on something that never should have been done to begin with. As long as you keep these suggestions in mind I believe you will find diligence to be an invaluable tool for achieving success.
The world of business acronyms, euphemisms and expressions that people use at work can be very confusing so ProsperingServant.com would like to help define the terms you hear on the job by proudly offering the Monday edition of our Watercooler Word of the Day. Today’s word (or in this case phase) is….
Mutual Fund - An investment vehicle that allows a group of investors to pay someone else to lose money on their behalf rather than take the time to lose it themselves.
Tags: career, homor, job, joke, mutual fund
Last time we saw the importance of diligence to career success. Today I would like to cover 5 great ways to become more diligent and thereby begin reaping the rewards that diligence has to offer.
Do what you love and love what you do
The first secret to being diligent is to genuinely like the work you do. If you have a passion for your line of work then diligence will follow almost automatically. You will pay close attention to your tasks because you are interested in them. You will be more productive because you enjoy the work you are doing.
If you hate your job it will take a lot of discipline to be diligent and that is hard. It also puts you at a disadvantage because in almost any career there are some people who are motivated by a love for the work. If you are competing against a person like that and you are trying to match them with shear discipline you have a real problem. You will be feeling tired and ready to quit while they are happily running along at full speed ahead. It would be much better to turn things around so that you are the person who is energized by love for the job while your competition is trying to push themselves along on nothing but shear will power.
Know the full scope of your tasks
One of the key components of diligence is thoroughness. In order to be thorough you need to be sure every aspect of your task is taken care of. You also need to be sure to manage the relationships between your work and the work of others. You have to be sure to address their needs just as completely as you address your own needs.
It is really tough to take care of all these details if you do not know what they are. Therefore, I would argue the next requirement after passion is a thorough understanding of the task at hand. Be just as diligent about studying the task as you are about doing it. Get a clear understanding of the following:
– what need is my task filling?
– who has a stake in the outcome?
– How long should it take?
– How much will it cost?
– What resources are available to use?
– what techniques for accomplishing the task will work best?
– what risks are involved?
– how would my stakeholders define a successful outcome?
Once you have some good answers to these questions you will be in a much better position to succeed.
Have a system for tracking all details
Once you understand all the dimensions of your work the next thing you need is an organized system for tracking them. The type of system you employ will vary with the type of work you do but there are a few universal characteristics that any good system should have. I use the various features of my Blackberry for my own system but you can use whatever works well for you.
Contact List - you never know who you might need to reach on short notice so it is good to have the names, phone numbers and email addresses of all your contacts handy at all times.
To-Do List - The moment you first find out about a task that needs doing me sure to jot down the details right away. Take note of what needs to be done, by whom, where it will be done and when it is due. Then review your list frequently so you never forget about an item.
Appointment Calendar — keep all your commitments in one place and set up alarms or reminders to warn you when things are coming up
Project Plans - if a task is complex consider writing out a formal plan for managing it. Make a list of all the steps in the task and note who will do each one and when it will be done. Also note what resources will be needed. Then follow up on each step to be sure it gets done as planned. Also take note of any problems or unanswered questions that might arise. Note the details around them and assign a person to follow up.
Make it portable — Whatever mechanism you use to capture the details above, be sure that you can easily carry it wherever you go. This is why I like to use a Blackberry. It fits right in my pocket and I have complete access to all my information anytime I need it.
Strive for excellence
A key part of diligence is an uncompromising pursuit of quality. Be on the lookout for ways to improve the quality of your tasks. Always try to outdo yourself by performing a task better the next time than you did the last time. Look carefully for flaws and apply whatever effort is required to fix them when they show up and to prevent them from happening again in the future.
Refuse to procrastinate
The opposite of diligence is laziness and the primary force behind laziness is procrastination. You might feel a bit guilty deciding up front to simply not do something you know you need to do. However, it can be very comforting to instead tell yourself you will get to it…..just not right now. Then the next time it occurs to you that the task still needs doing you simply defer it again. Each time you vow it will get done eventually. The only problem is that eventually never actually comes. This is not a good way to be productive and get ahead. A better approach to handling an unpleasant task is to do it immediately and get it over with. If it is truly impossible to do it immediately, write down a specific time on your calendar when you will do it. Then when the time comes follow through as planned….no excuses….no deferrals. As the Nike slogan says, just do it.
The world of business acronyms, euphemisms and expressions that people use at work can be very confusing so ProsperingServant.com would like to help define the terms you hear on the job by proudly offering the Wednesday edition of our Watercooler Word of the Day. Today’s word (or in this case phase) is….
Project Plan - A bold declaration by a Project Manager of what will be accomplished and when it will be finished….often turns into more of a prediction of what will not get done and when it will not be done by.
Whether you are an entrepreneur running your own company or an employee looking to move up the corporate ladder, one of the most powerful forces for increased success I know of is diligence. A diligent person has a huge advantage over the average worker because most people are only willing to put in the minimum amount of required effort to keep their job and stay out of trouble. Someone who regularly goes beyond the minimum requirements gains an edge over the competition by out-producing them and in so doing earns a reputation as a top performer.
Scripture is full of references to the importance of diligence and the rewards it brings. Here are a few examples:
Lazy hands make a man poor, but diligent hands bring wealth.
Proverbs 10:4
Diligent hands will rule, but laziness ends in slave labor.
Proverbs 12:24
The lazy man does not roast his game, but the diligent man prizes his possessions.
Proverbs 12:27
The sluggard craves and gets nothing, but the desires of the diligent are fully satisfied.
Proverbs 13:4
The plans of the diligent lead to profit as surely as haste leads to poverty.
.Proverbs 21:5
Diligent people prosper because they have a genuine enthusiasm for their work. This passion motivates them to do far more work with much higher quality than their peers. They are also very thorough. They pay attention to detail. They are never satisfied with doing just half the job. They consistently follow up on every aspect of their tasks until each item is fully complete and done with excellence.
If you are a manager or business owner your task is to recruit and nurture as many diligent people as you can. If you are an individual contributor you should cultivate diligence in your own work habits. In either case your success and the success of your team depend on it.
As a manger, I consider a diligent work ethic to be the number one most important trait my team members can have. This surprises some people. A lot of folks think talent is the most important trait in a worker. I disagree because a skilled person who is lazy will never produce much. However, a diligent person can apply diligence toward increasing his or her skills. This person can then take these increased skills and apply them diligently to the tasks at hand.
If you own a business, this type of applied diligence will help you to grow your business faster and larger. It will help you run rings around more complacent competitors. If you are an employee in an organization it will earn you faster promotions, better bonuses and bigger raises. In either case it is an essential ingredient to prosperity.
