Tip of the month, Inside Track, July 2010

This article is filed under: leadership, time management, transformational leadership

Taking the time to refocus

While we’re on the subject of tennis, I’ve been thinking of the application of sports psychology to work situations. The particular tip I’d like to share is the pause to regroup, gather one’s thoughts, settle one’s emotions, and clear the mind from the last activity to better face the next task.

Sports psychologists talk about the need, for example, to take the time to regroup and clear the mind between each point in tennis, and before each serve. The last point, whether it went well or badly, is banished to the past. We are only in the here and now. This helps us refocus and concentrate on what is needed without any emotional overlay or noise from other things happening in one’s life.

In my on-going battle to improve my tennis, I have come to recognise that my biggest barrier to better play is not technical or one of fitness, but is all about achieving this concentration and focus. Not just on a point by point basis, but every time I hit the ball. So it is in business.

Try these exercises to refocus yourself and your colleagues:

• If you’re in a meeting and it’s clear that individuals in the room are still fighting other outside battles in their heads, ask them to take five minutes to follow you on an exercise. Ask them to choose a word – any word – that has positive or neutral connotations for them, close their eyes and concentrate on repeating that word until you tell them to open their eyes. If their mind wanders, tell them, it’s ok, and just to note that their mind wandered and bring the mind back to repeating the word. The atmosphere after these five minutes will be dramatically different – much more relaxed, with people focused on the task at hand and each other, their thinking much clearer.

• Or, when you need to switch from one major task to another, use the same exercise on yourself. Successful political and business leaders are masters at doing this without realising it. They can make the switch in seconds rather than minutes. They have to be, as they switch from dealing with terrorist threats to discussing the budget to dealing with the latest political scandal to hit their party.

How strange that such a simple, quick thing as taking the time to refocus can be so key to delivering one’s best performance.