Attention – ElPropósito3 min de lectura

Performance and distraction

Yesterday I shared a video about attention and being present with one of my best friends, and he replied, "To be, you have to be there." I had heard him say it several times, but yesterday I saw what being present means in a new light. We often assume that sitting next to someone or at a meeting table is enough. Yet we can be there in body while our mind is somewhere else. That thought made me look more closely at my relationships today with my children, my wife, my family, my friends and my work when I am with them. Am I really paying attention? Do I give myself body and soul to listening to what they are telling me? Am I truly interested in what they are saying? I cannot promise I give full attention to everything and everyone one hundred percent of the time, but I am more and more aware of what led me to the title of this post, which even sounds like a book: the century of great distraction.

On the professional side, several teams come to mind where I have taken part, both contributing my own work and serving as a coach or consultant. I find it fascinating when I come across highly efficient teams, or better put, high-performance teams. That is exactly where I find great examples of full attention: no laptops, no phones, no interruptions. These teams have planned their time very well and devote themselves body and soul to finding solutions and answers to the challenges in front of them. They know that outside their meeting, as the seconds and minutes tick by, there is a storm of distractions and "important matters to take care of." Even so, they are very clear that what is urgent and important is to be present in their meeting.

Tim Gallwey said that performance equals potential minus interference. Distraction may be one of the biggest interferences we face today: the urge to be anywhere except here and now with the person in front of us, and even with ourselves. Being present has become one of our greatest challenges, whatever the setting: a family gathering, a working session, a team, time with our children or friends. From a leadership standpoint, I can say with certainty that a fundamental quality of a good leader is the ability to be present, to listen with full attention and to go beyond the words one or several people are saying in a meeting or a conversation.

I believe the world would be a better place if we built up our ability to focus, to be here and now with the people we love. We will be more productive in our relationships and in our daily lives to the extent that we leave everything that distracts us far, far behind, as long as we understand how much weight our attention deserves. As Mario Alonso Puig says, "Attention must go to what we want to achieve, and not to what we are trying to avoid." The question I want to leave you with is this: what will be different if we can improve our attention by even one percent, and how will we know we have improved it?

Warm regards and all the best,

Rodrigo Baccaro

Author: Rodrigo Baccaro

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