Don’t run out of attention widgets

I am sure we all have experienced times in our lives when we have too many things going on, too many priorities and too many things to juggle. We predictably begin to get stressed and lose track of our priorities. We become reactive, going from one fire to the next, desperately trying to hold everything together. Eventually we drop something and the whole house of cards begins to crumble. In effect, we ran out of attention widgets and our ability to manage was overwhelmed.

Once we find a good therapist to help us put our lives back in order, we would be reminded of some basic practices to help ensure that we don’t again run out of our precious attention widgets. We would be reminded that we only have so many at our disposal and that we can’t do everything. We would be reminded to prioritize that which is most important, to say no to things that don’t meet a threshold of importance and to husband our attention widgets so that we can remain successful and sane. We may even be encouraged to save some attention widgets in case something unexpected happens.

Organizations have the same problems, and the answers are largely the same. And yet, just like you and me, organizations often take on too much, often don’t prioritize and generally aren’t mindful of how many attention widgets they are using — until it is too late.

Organizations have a finite ability to pay attention to all of the things they need to pay attention to in order to be successful. One might frame this by saying that the organization has a finite number of attention widgets at its disposal. One critically important role that leaders have is to manage the distribution of those attention widgets. Leaders must be mindful of the organization’s capacity to track and meaningfully process its many priorities, and then distribute the attention widgets it has at its disposal in ways that do not overwhelm the organization’s ability to manage them. If the organization is overwhelmed with too many things to pay attention to, leaders run out of attention widgets to distribute and the organization begins to falter.

Leaders distribute attention widgets in many ways. Typically, one might think of attention widget distribution as simply a function of distributing them according to what is on the strategic plan. But attention widgets are spent in other ways, too. And this is often what gets leaders into trouble. Leaders spend widgets by telegraphing what they prioritize, where they hold people accountable, and simply by what they talk about every day. People pay attention to all these things, and in the act of paying attention, widgets are inexorably used.

Every new initiative you take on, every ancillary process you implement, every secondary or tertiary focus area you add to the list, every flavor of the day you champion, represents an expenditure of organizational attention widgets. What may seem like a small thing adds to the growing list of things people need to process, prioritize, manage and even just think about. Everything you do, talk about and think about that lies outside your core business takes something away from your capacity to focus on your core business and the things that make you successful.

One challenge leaders have is in ascertaining what “extra” items they should add to the pile. Certainly, there are things that lie outside of your core business that can significantly contribute to the success of your organization. Talent development is a good example. Effectively developing talent is important in any organization. It has obvious and significant long- and short-term payoffs, and it is an effective use of the organization’s attention widgets to actively engage in it. However, one can go too far. As one executive told me, “We don’t run this business so that we can develop talent.” Fair enough.

This is a bigger picture example that may be obvious. But, as we said, it is often the accumulation of less obvious things that get us into trouble. And the list of these kinds of things is long: new focus areas, competency models, process changes, scheduling changes, changes in reporting relationships, employee groups, new oversight meetings, increased accountability processes, training, etc., etc., ad infinitum.

Each of these may seem important and may also seem rather inconsequential in terms of execution. Each of them can be rationalized by thinking that they don’t require a lot of time and resources. But add them up, and people have a lot more to deal with. Keeping up with such things requires your people to engage in every one of them to some extent. Reading emails, attending meetings, reorganizing how they operate, reframing their mental models of what they should do, and the when and how. Every single one of these “minor” things requires the use of attention widgets. And as we’ve established, they are finite.

This is not to say that leaders should not engage in anything outside of core business. But it does mean that they need to think carefully about these things. Leaders need to get a sense of how many attention widgets they have, how they are used and how many widgets are required for each new thing they want to take on. This is no easy task. In fact, it is one of those critical leadership skills that often comes to leaders only through much time and experience. It is not easily taught. The best leaders I have worked with have become very good at intuitively understanding what is important, what is not, how many attention widgets they have and how many they are spending. They modulate the activity of the organization so they can engage in ancillary but important activities so the organization has attention widgets to spare.

This looks something like recognizing the value of the many things we want to do, or think we should do, but executing them in a way that doesn’t eat up all available attention widgets. For example, some items might be delayed until next quarter or next year. Another good option is to sometimes just say no.

In fact, we don’t say no enough. There are a good many activities that organizations often engage in that maybe they just shouldn’t do. I can think of many times in my career where I was directed to engage in activities that weren’t all that important, were of minimal impact or were done for reasons that had little to do with the success of the greater organization. Leaders need to be careful about what they say yes to and be much more willing to say no when the value isn’t there.

Your attention widgets are valuable. They are the currency you use to accomplish the organization’s goals. Leaders must be mindful of how many attention widgets they have at their disposal and the cost of all the activities that they ask their organization to engage in. The last thing you want is to run out of attention widgets.