Eleven Ways Leaders Create Focus

Focus is a key Personal Skill of successful people. The ability to bore into the most important things and stay attentive and focused on them, and continue that behavior as a means of solving problems, contacting prospects, writing a report, preparing a presentation, doing an analysis, maximizing the value of a meeting, is key to success. Focus maximizes time - it results in more being done in less time.


And yet, for most people, acquiring the Personal Skill of focus seems impossible - too many distractions, too many things and too little time, too many impositions to even think of focusing on one thing for any period of time. The result is that a lot of decisions are made with superficial research, at best. Even the most important decisions get short attention - or get set aside, all in the name of not enough time.


You won't hear the highly successful using the excuse of too little time. They take the time - they make the time - they treasure their time - they refuse to let their time be dribbled away on "stuff."


How do they do that?


We asked the most effective people we know how they can seem to get so much accomplished. Here's a summary of the advice they gave us.


1 - Be selfish with your time and be rewarded with focus and time to be generous. Guard your time against the many intruders that would consume it to no effect. Once that's done, time for focusing just seems to appear. And time to be generous in giving to others appears as well.


2 - Know what's most important to you - that day. If you can't state what are the most important things to you - for that day - you can't possibly maximize time and create focus. Goals are critical to creating focus and effectiveness.


3 - Live your life in "day tight compartments." Dale Carnegie made that suggestion in his book "Stop Worrying and Start Living." What does that mean? Don't waste time on yesterday, don't waste time on tomorrow - spend your time - physically and emotionally, in today. Wall off all those things that try to intrude that aren't important today. Focus on today - exclude all other things. Make today it's own day tight compartment


4 - Create trust wherever you can. The more trust people have in you, the more time you will have to focus on your most important things.


5 - Eat the frog first. Brian Tracy - in a book of the same name, advises that the frog - the most important thing you have to do today - be the first thing attacked every day. Failure to do that results in constant looking over your shoulder and anxiety - both are robbers of focus.


6 - Ask! Ask for help, ask for resources, ask for information, ask for cooperation. And be a giver and a taker - in equal measure.


7 - Train yourself to focus. Use an hour as your time block and spend an uninterrupted hour on focusing on the most important thing. Be amazed at the end of that time to see how much progress you have made. Extend that focus exercise to your other top goals. The skill of focusing and giving undivided attention for an hour is a top 10% skill - it gives enormous competitive advantage.


8 - Learn to say no. If you're not enthusiastic about doing something you won't do a good job. And that will corrode trust, and create anxiety, and lead to interpersonal issues. Plus, being a martyr to someone else's needs is really unattractive - and unappreciated. If you've ever tried to really focus on something you didn't feel good about, you know what a waste of time that is.


9 - Be realistic. Everyone has a boss. It may be that on any given day very little time will be available for focus on important stuff. Other things get in the way. Treasure that one hour that is available and spend it focused on the most important thing.


10 - Don't confuse busy with focused or effective. Often all busy is is a way to avoid the truly important.


11 - Be a respecter of the time of others. To the extent that you want your time respected, you gotta respect the time of others. If you don't respect the time of others, you're a taker - and nobody likes or respects a taker.

Start today - in this particular "day tight compartment" - to develop the Personal Skill of focus. Start with goals - and then translate them into daily goals and tasks. Watch your effectiveness and accomplishments soar.

Written by Andy Cox, President

Cox Consulting Group, 4049 E Vista Drive, Phoenix, AZ 85032 Ph: 602-795-4100; Fax: 602-795-4800; E Mail: acox@coxconsultgroup.com; Website: http://www.coxconsultgroup.com/; Blog: http://multiplysuccess.blogspot.com/

Copyright 2008 All Rights Reserved

Goal Setting - Six Steps To Keeping Focus

We ask every leader we work with what they would do more of, better, or more often when they look back on their career, and the top answer is "Focus." When asked how they would do that, they answer that they would be even more goal oriented than they had been. In their opinion, goals create focus that creates accomplishment. With so many demands intruding or attempting to intrude on their attention and energies, goals that create focus are their firewall, and their primary path to success.

Given that so many highly successful people look to goals for focus, why is it that so many organizations and people can't state their personal goals or the goals of their organization - let alone how their personal goals align with their organizational goals?

One reason given is time - "We don't have time for that - we're too busy. " Another reason (read excuse) given is the belief that an individual has no control over their future - too many things outside a person's control can cause things to change, so just go with the flow.

It turns out that most people spend more time focused on planning a two week vacation than they do planning their career. I suspect that's because planning a vacation is controllable, pleasant, and near term - it's easy to focus on it.

But to succeed and prosper, it's vitally important to have a personal set of goals. - they keep us in the game - whatever game is being played. And personal goals that closely align with organizational goals create a tremendous amount of energy, commitment and focus.

Personal goals are even more important when organizational goals don't exist, or aren't expressed, or exist in name only. It's very tempting in those cases to simply give in to the flow of the day to day, and go with whatever comes along - with little if any focus.

Goals help balance the very human tendency to be distracted by the pressing, in - your - face things that happen every day - it's called being "flexible." Flexibility can be a strength, but it can also be a weakness - when flexing becomes a habit and we look back and see that flexing took us far away from where we wanted to be or needed to be.

A friend shared a joke with me that illustrates that point - "Inside every 65 year old is a 40 year old wondering what the hell happened?"

Focus is the difference between wondering what the hell happened, and landing where you wanted to land. It's the difference between throwing a touchdown pass - or throwing a superball - and watching it bounce every which way - with high energy, but with no idea where it will land - and what good - or damage - it will do.

Here are six steps to create focus:

1 - Write down where you want to be in one month, six months, one year, three years and five years. I know, it sounds like a lot of work. It is. But I can tell you from personal experience that those time frames will blow right past you if you don't take the time to plan them now. And you'll end up like that 65 year old wondering what happened.

2 - Define how your source of income - your job - your profession - fits into your own goals. How do your work goals fit in with your personal goals? Are they the same? How can they come together in the near term to provide long term benefit? The closer your personal goals align with the goals of your organization or profession, the better your chances of accomplishing them. This is the key to focus - being convinced and directed to success through goals that embrace you personally and professionally.

3 - Start with short term goals, but with the end in mind. Weekly, monthly, quarterly. Define the top 3 to 5 things that you need to do now to get you to where you want to be. No more than 3 to 5 - and 5 is a stretch. Remember, you can only really focus on doing one thing at a time. There is no more powerful way to become discouraged than to "over goal" yourself at this stage.

4 - Express your goals in positive terms. Express your goals in terms of what you want to achieve as opposed to what you want to avoid or get rid of. Optimism loves positive outcomes - work to think in those terms.


5 - Define your goals using the SMART formula - Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time - framed.

6 - Keep track. Hold yourself accountable. Review your goals at least weekly. Carry them with you wherever you go. Make them part of your thinking. Make a habit of reciting your goals and the outcomes of achieving them. Make them your way of life. And when they need to be revised - and that will happen often - just do it.

If you're feeling frustrated and busy and not sure where you're going, start this process today. It isn't easy. It requires personal discipline. It requires faith in yourself. But the rewards of a sense of purpose, focus and freedom are worth the effort. And when you look back in a few weeks to a few months, you'll be surprised at how far you've come, and making goals the cornerstone of focus will become a habit - a habit of success.

Written by Andy Cox, President

Cox Consulting Group, 4049 E Vista Drive, Phoenix, AZ 85032 Ph: 602-795-4100; Fax: 602-795-4800; E Mail: acox@coxconsultgroup.com; Website: http://www.coxconsultgroup.com/; Blog: http://multiplysuccess.blogspot.com/

Copyright 2008 All Rights Reserved

Managing Goals - Sometimes You Gotta Trim The Tree

Managing goals and trimming trees. What? Let me tell you, I'm a goal junkie. I'm constantly setting goals for all kinds of things in my life. They are all SMART goals - they meet the criteria for good goals - I know how to do that. The only problem is my wants always exceed my gets. And that's a problem. How many of you have the same problem? Too many goals - too little time - too many unmet goals that have the ability to demotivate. You know what you want - you know how to get there - but the results simply do not meet the intentions.

A story about trimming trees:

I have a tree in the backyard. A Palo Verde tree - absolutely beautiful. Green trunk, delicate leaves, many, many branches and, like many desert trees, it's covered with hard, sharp thorns. Tough to trim without my becoming a pincushion - so it didn't get trimmed.

Up until last year it had lots of foliage - even in the driest months. Then something happened, and this year there are any number of small and large branches that are dead - dry as a bone. There is still some foliage, but not what it had been. The tree looks like it's dying. We increased the water, and some of the branches flourished, but many others didn't. I trimmed the outer branches, and removed a lot of the dead growth - but still no real progress.

Finally I consulted an arborist to see what to do. The arborist took one look at the tree and knew exactly what had to be done. He could see that the tree had grown without any trimming, and that every branch that popped out just grew. It had adequate water, and all those branches became major limbs of the tree - demanding nourishment. There must be 15 or twenty limbs that are creating this beautiful pattern of unrestrained growth. Only problem is that the tree's root structure can't support that much foliage - this is a desert tree, adapted to a low water environment. The result is going to be the death of the tree - unless hard decisions are made and the number of major tree limbs are reduced to no more than 5 to 7.

Since talking to the arborist, I've stood back and then circled that tree any number of times, and now I know which limbs to remove to get down to 5 to 7 major branches. Looking back, if it had been trimmed periodically it wouldn't need this kind of major surgery. Once the trimming is done, I will have a tree that won't look so good for a while, but that will flourish as it recovers from its foliage overload. The arborist told me if I hadn't sought out somebody with knowledge of the type of tree, its structure and needs as well as its growth habits, and then followed the advice given to reduce the burden on the tree root structure, within two to three years the tree would be dead, or blown over by one of the violent summer storms we get in Phoenix.

Now that major surgery is being done, I promise to trim it every six months, and not let this situation occur again.

What does this have to do with goals?

I sat down to review my goals for the first half of the year and wasn't too pleased with my accomplishments. Oh sure - I had gotten a lot done, but there were so many things I had included as either goals or as action items that my list of the things I completed looked pretty puny next to the list of things I wanted to get done. Then it occurred to me that my goals and that Palo Verde tree had a lot in common. And just like that tree, my goals had grown to the point where I could no longer sustain and meet them. I had gotten myself to the place where I had put too much on my plate at one time, and was busily trying to support too much with too little.

My goals had become so numerous that many were wilting on the tree - they were undernourished. And yet, I was working my butt off to support this wild growth, and not being successful. Luckily, I'm stepping back - like the arborist did for me - and taking a really hard look, and cutting back this thicket of goals to 3 to 5 major goals that I can support. I will be better for it - and more successful - and able to support more things in the future, but first I have to trim the tree - keep the 3 to 5 most important goals as the most important goals, and then work them - hard. Nourish the major branches - and in doing that, allow for stronger long term growth.

Take a look at your own tree of goals, along with your thicket of must do's and have to do's - and if you see too many branches for your resources, trim - and trim aggressively so you can focus on success in the main things.

Do it today - the beginning of the second half of the year is a great time to adjust, reengage, reevealuate, and come out of 2007 with success in the truly most important things.

Written by Andy Cox, President

Cox Consulting Group LLC, 4049 E Vista Drive, Phoenix, AZ 85032 Ph: 602-795-4100; Fax: 602-795-4800; E Mail: acox@coxconsultgroup.com; Website: www.coxconsultgroup.com

Copyright 2007 All Rights Reserved

Leaders Set Goals To Define Priorities

Setting goals as the way to create priorities, whether in business or in personal life, is what leaders do to maintain direction and focus in their organizations and in their personal lives. Unfortunately, many managers take a tremendous amount of potential leverage out of their organizations by not prioritizing.

I had a boss whose standard answer to "What's the most important thing?" was "Everything's the most important thing." What a copout. We were in a crisis mode and there was a lot to get done, but what that "Everything is important" direction led to was a lot of counterproductive behavior - hunker down and keep the boss off your butt by being busy all the time - 24/7 - and ride it out. Do what you're told to do, and then ask "What's next?" After a year of that no leverage management style he was fired - but not until some very good people had left the organization.

Managers that take the "everything is Number 1" approach are often rewarded for being tough, no nonsense, aggressive problem solvers. The fact that many of the problems they solved were created by them seems to go unnoticed. Actually, instead of leadership, they use a brute force approach to getting things done. That often works in a crisis situation, but when everything becomes a crisis, those managers lose their effectiveness and their people become cynical about how they are treated. Brute force managers rarely have goals they share with people, and even more rarely do they have their people participate in any meaningful way in setting goals and priorities. To many of them, sharing information and open communication are threats to their control. Many of them are quite happy with a compliance level workforce - the "Just tell me what to do and I'll do it" people. There is no leverage in the Brute Force management style.

How do effective leaders create priorities that maximize their own effectiveness and the effectiveness of their organization?

They start with a clear understanding of what the three to five most important things are, both personally and professionally. This is tough - there are always many more issues vying for attention than there are resources available to address them. The leader makes the tough decisions - the Brute Force manager doesn't.

Then the leader enlists people in the areas of importance to help arrive at ways to succeed in meeting the most important requirements.

Then the leader creates and communicates and negotiates goals that support the most important three to five issues, or challenges, or opportunities.

The goals are used to create supporting goals, expectations and understandings of importance in the universe of people that can contribute to meeting the goal.

Then leaders act - and expect action from their people.


Leaders protect their own time, and the time of their people, so that maximum focus can be kept on the critical few, and not frittered away on the unimportant many.

And then leaders evaluate, change if change is necessary, and continue to use the process as the basis for action throughout their organization.

And they insist that this process be kept as simple as possible - minimum bureaucracy here. Don't wait for an enterprise wide software system to capture all the data and signups and goal statements. More good goal setting systems have drowned of their own administrative weight than for any other reason. Leaders fight that. Leaders know the critical intersection in goal setting and prioritizing is at the person to person level - not at the form completion and submission point.

And the resulting action they get is so different from the "Tell me what to do and I'll do it" people. Lots of leverage in a shared goal environment - on both a personal and work level.

Leaders know most people want to help, want to contribute, want to be involved in a worthy enterprise, want to be recognized for their contribution. Leaders also know most people work best and most effectively where they have structure and an understanding of what needs to be done. Once they have that, great things start to happen! They no longer have to say "Just tell me what to do and I'll do it" - they know the priorities and what is most important. They can use the freedom that knowledge provides to keep their eyes on the few big balls - and not be distracted by all the little balls that will always bounce around and take up all the time people will let them take up.

Leaders also know there are times when brute force may be the only appropriate tactic - a public safety health product recall, a natural disaster, a systems failure, a fire - all call for everybody pitching in to get things done - whatever that means. But leaders know the brute force tactic is the exception to the rule, and is only used when absolutely necessary. And their people know it - and rather than take it as just another in a long line of fire drills, they pitch in and know their efforts will be part of a worthy enterprise's efforts to succeed. The result is maximum leverage when needed.

If you work or live in an "Everything is important" situation, be careful of burning out. If you can take what leaders do and apply it to your work and your personal situation two things will happen - you'll have more time for the really important things, and your personal and professional success will increase - I guarantee it. And on those brute force days, or weeks, keep the leader's model of goals to priorities firmly in your sights - and get back to it as soon as possible. Start today.

Written by Andy Cox, President

Cox Consulting Group LLC, 4049 E Vista Drive, Phoenix, AZ 85032 Ph:602-795-4100; Fax: 602-795-4800; E Mail: acox@coxconsultgroup.com; Website:www.coxconsultgroup.com

Copyright 2007 All Rights Reserved

Focus - What You Think Is What You Get

Ever noticed how - when you really, really want something, and you focus your thinking on getting it and all the good that it will bring, that more often than not it comes true. On the other hand, have you ever noticed that when you want something and think about all the things that could go wrong, they do?

A friend is a mountain biker. He says every time he concentrates on a rock in his path, he ends up riding over it. A fly fisherman friend says every time he thinks about snagging in the tree behind him when he casts , he ends up snagging that tree. A gymnast friend tells me he won't allow hmself to think about falling off the still rings, because if he does, he will end up falling off.
What we think is what we get.

A dear friend confides in me that his expectation when he meets new people is that it will result in a negative situation - indifference, dismissal, or some other combination of negative outcomes. He has absolutely no reason to feel that way - but he does. His interactions with new people usually end up with him being pleasantly surprised that the other person was friendly. But his thinking of negative expectations keeps him fom seeking out new people in his life.

One of the key steps to success is being able to cut through all of our self imposed crap and examine the kinds of thinking we do. Do a self examination - be brutally honest with yourself. After all, you don't have to share your findings with anyone other than yourself. Find out if your focus and thinking takes you toward what you want, or keeps you from getting there. It's not an easy exercise, and the longer you have been thinking negative self thoughts the longer it may take to overcome them. But the reward for your effort will really be worth it - I guarantee it.

Start today - start now - do it!