Sidetracked? Here's How To Reclaim Your Focus At Work

In the early days of 2020, my company was closing in on a major milestone. We had our eyes fixed squarely on European expansion with hopes to get a team in the field and products to market. But there was a major problem. We had chosen to start in Northern Italy, and weeks before our planned launch, the region became the epicenter of the first major COVID-19 outbreak on the continent. Everything stopped in its tracks.??

A goal that had been on horizon from the beginning of our company was no longer visible. It was the same story for most every business — carefully laid plans and long-term goals were swept aside as safety and security rose to the forefront. In the days and weeks to come, we were met with the “new normal” — working from home, unable to meet with customers in person, while onboarding new employees over webcam.

Fast-forward more than 18 months and new COVID waves continue to shift back-to-work plans; supply chains remain unreliable; safety protocols are still evolving. Indeed, for so many businesses, the pandemic has translated to a crisis of focus: managing day-to-day realities and traumas has overshadowed pursuit of bigger goals.

There are no easy answers here. But beyond fundamentals like embracing adaptability and resilience, I’ve found a few, relatively simple strategies helped keep us from getting derailed and keep expansion in our sights.?

How an ‘80s business cliché kept us on track

Business philosophies are a dime a dozen, but there’s one that we incorporated into our strategy and actually found it extremely useful. It’s the rock, pebbles, sand approach to time management popularized by Stephen Covey in his 1989 book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. The basic concept is that your big goals are rocks, smaller tasks are pebbles, and everything else is sand. Now imagine fitting all that into a jar — if you start with the pebbles and sand, the rocks will never fit. Our rocks are our quarterly goals, which level up to annual goals, which all add up to our critical 10-year goal: having data-gathering sensors monitor 10 million acres of farmland.?

This approach has been especially important for us in the last 18 months. Research has shown small tasks get overblown in this new working world, resulting in unnecessary meetings and lengthy distractions. If a problem has no direct relation to your rock goals, you know it’s just sand and it’s not worth significant time. It might be a cheesy concept, but it’s allowed us to be agile on the way to achieving our goals — perhaps the most important thing a business can be during the pandemic.?

When it became clear we weren’t going to be able to “move our rocks” through European expansion, we were able to see through the sand and find a new way to reach that goal. In our case, we turned our attention to adding acres by acquiring other companies.

Repetition, repetition, repetition

Confession: I hate repeating myself. Effective communication, however, often requires exactly that.

Take those big goals. I used to review them once a quarter. After all, I could rattle them off in my sleep … and just assumed everyone else could, too. Turns out that was a serious case of executive tunnel vision. Now, we start each meeting by running through our purpose, our short-term goals and our ultimate goal of 10 million acres. This level of repetition can feel uncomfortable as a leader, but it’s so important — especially today.?

Business leaders can learn a lesson from public health leaders here in keeping messages simple and driving them home. In fact, communications experts have stressed repetition as a vital strategy to fight signal noise since before the pandemic, which has only become worse since our lives were interrupted.?

Delivering a consistent message day after day can seem monotonous, but it’s actually helping people find some normalcy and stability. This has helped my team stay on target and connect their day-to-day to the company vision, despite so much changing in their lives.

From the onset of the pandemic, nobody has complained about overcommunication from their employer. Instead, it’s been the opposite. The challenge then becomes finding new ways to keep the message interesting and listeners engaged. Humour is one of my go-tos: I’m a fan of throwing in a Will Ferrell GIF (or five) to keep things light in company communications. And this leads to my next point.?

The power of good news

Harnessing the power of optimism, even when you have to squeeze the last drops of it out of people, can be a powerful tool for fighting distraction and achieving alignment.?

Each day at our company starts with a team meeting at 9:30 a.m., where everyone at the table has to give a piece of good news to their manager. It can be a task they accomplished the day before, or their daughter’s performance at a piano recital. In fact, we’ve even started to embrace possible good news. Promising overseas acquisition on the horizon for the company? That counts, even if plenty of details remain to be ironed out.?

There’s science at work here — positivity leads to creativity. We’ve spent nearly two years living with an invisible threat, dealing with an information overload that’s overwhelmingly scary and sad. But we can’t operate in a state of negativity and fear. This good news confessional isn’t a one-step fix to get from “surviving to thriving,” but it has been a nice way to set the tone for the day.

The hurdles that have been (and continue to be) thrown at us since the crisis started are daunting. And there’s no panacea for businesses trying to adapt and retain focus. But keeping your eyes on the horizon, while staying open to new routes to reach your destination, can be a powerful antidote to uncertainty. That audacious goal of 10 million acres? We’ve surpassed it, despite the massive setback in Europe. We’re now at 100 million acres and counting. Don’t get me wrong, plenty more challenges lay ahead, and the future is always uncertain. But there are few things a focused workforce and some Will Ferrell GIFs can’t solve.?

A version of this article was originally featured in?Newsweek.?Keep up with my latest articles by following me here or on?Twitter.