Maintaining Focus: How Top Executives Do It

Written by David Madison, Ph.D. the Five O Clock Club

Successful people commonly work in demanding, highly paced environments. Big budgets, quarterly goals, large staffs, complex projects-all must be handled in an atmosphere of increasing competition and incessant input from phone, fax and email. Many busy executives conduct business on the go, from cell phones in airplanes and rental cars, and most find their calendars full several months out.

How do they do it? How do successful people maintain the focus that has enabled them to get where they are today?

The Five O'Clock News posed these questions to four members of the Employment Roundtable.

Not surprisingly, values integral to Five O'Clock Club methodology-self-assessment, grounding life in goals and vision-emerged in the course of these conversations.

We offer the following career and life management insights based on their comments.

Steve Atamanchuk recognizes that early in life he was driven by ambition and goals.

"Whether I was a young kid playing Little League or on the school chess team, winning was the key. From that perspective I guess I always had a focus."

Being successful plays a role in maintaining focus; Steve finds that each day's victories are the motivators for winning again tomorrow.

"Wanting to get up in the morning and do it all over again only comes from what you might have done the day before . if I've gotten excited or met with someone who's gotten me involved in something, it gives me inspiration to go back and do it again the next day."

Steve clearly enjoys his role as a change agent because it allows him to be continually goal oriented.

One of his favorite quotes gives us a glimpse of how he sees himself: "There are three types of people in this world: those who make it happen, those who watch it happen . and those who wonder what happened."

Obviously for Steve, keeping on focus is almost a personality trait based on his thirst for challenge and being a winner.

But What about the Roses?

Steve recognizes, however, that if he were driven by these forces alone, he would probably lose focus and cease to be a winner.

Keeping focus depends very much, he feels, on achieving balance. Sometimes obstacles or trauma can be a reminder of the importance of balance.

Both his parents died in a short period of time. "It was a tough thing for me to take. It did, however, make me stronger and gave me a different perspective about my family.

Sometimes over-achievers never stop long enough to smell the roses. Then something happens that makes you stop and do nothing. That actually helps put things in focus. If you do that occasionally, you can just look at yourself, where you are going and what you are doing."

If you fail to look inward for reality checks, focus will dissipate, no matter how much urgency and energy are applied to goals. "You really need to understand yourself.

Not just about achieving and what you're capable of, but who you are and how you want to get to your goals."

Harmonizing Personal and Professional Goals

Frequent down-time also brings rest and renewal, and provides energy for maintaining focus. For Steve that means spending time with his wife and family.

Steve was quick to offer an update for the old cliché about a great woman standing behind every great man. ". not behind him but beside him, because it's really a partnership. Everything you do in life is a partnership."

He speaks fondly too of his five-year old daughter. "Just being with her brings me back to reality. Every time I've had a bad day and tend to say, Okay, what can happen next?-she gives me that smile, that kiss and hug. J

ust being with her helps me step back and keep everything in perceptive."

The view from the winner's chair is clearly one of the primary motivators in Steve's life, hence another of this favorite quotes, "If you're not the lead dog, the scenery never changes." But he would counsel that focus is achieved by moderating urgency and energy with simple human values.

Focused and In Touch

Marilyn Shea looks back to a course that she took some twenty years ago on career management and goal setting. It played a key role in helping get her focused.

She emerged with a direction, "as opposed to being all over the board." But coupled with this element of strategizing and planning, Marilyn is quick to add that a key ingredient is passion.

"I think that most successful people are doing what they really love, which helps them focus on good achievements in their careers."

But maintaining focus in the midst of the daily grind depends also on vision.

"Vision is more than just goals."

And the vision, to remain viable, must be connected to ongoing events in the real world: "Part of having a vision is to stay really in touch with what's happening in your business and industry, and also being very much in touch with what's going on globally, and being prepared to change when you see the world around you changing."

In addition to the focus rooted in planning, goals and vision, Marilyn acknowledges that her human support system is crucial.

Along the way, mentors have played a role: "I've had a couple of mentors in my life who have been very helpful.

They've given me a nudge when I've needed it." But the on-going support from office staff is vital, and the "great spouse" factor has played a major role in Marilyn's success: "I have an extremely supportive husband who was willing to make a major move so I could take the position I am in."

Putting Yourself on the Calendar

But Marilyn has also found that maintaining focus on career goals depends upon achieving balance, not losing sight of the other important things in life, namely, "family and some type of leisure."

Faced with commitments that could easily consume all waking hours, Marilyn's trick is to "make appointments with myself.

I try to get my work done within certain hours, then spend time with my family and do other things I love, such as sailing, playing tennis and gardening."

Marilyn believes also that focus can be enhanced by the process of encountering obstacles, and creating way to overcome them.

Obstacles help you recognize that "you need to do something differently; they help you to be creative. When you run into an obstacle, use your brain and figure a way around it."

Early on in her career, Marilyn recognized that focus cannot be something rigid or restricting-growth and realization of potential require welcoming the unexpected.

"When I graduated from college in the late 1960s, on my first job interview I saw a quote on the wall: 'Don't sacrifice opportunity for security.'

It really hit home with me, and I've tried to keep those words in mind through most of my career."

And many years later she came across another quote that compliments the earlier words perfectly, and can be appreciated by people who have spent years developing skills and refining their crafts:

"Luck is the meeting of preparation and opportunity."

Staying on Top of Change

Marilyn is a believer that focus is essentially a way of thinking about the world and one's role in it-and adapting as the world changes rapidly.

"Probably the biggest challenge for all of us right now is managing change.

Even if we have a pretty good idea of what we want to be doing in five or ten years, the rate of change will make management of goals more difficult.

In my opinion, if a person can stay in touch and feel as if he is managing change instead of being managed by it, he will be happier and more successful."

Focus Grounded in Passion

For Patrick Oden, focus is rooted in love for one's work. He suggests that the burnout rate in investment banking-people dropping out in 5 to 10 years-can be traced to the fact that they're not involved in a "labor of love."

All the hard work is not grounded in passion. Busy executives on the way to burnout can be compared with students cramming for finals exams.

"They get the adrenaline level up to get through the finals, but that can't be sustained . it will wear you down unless you really love the business you're in."

Your business must be a turn-on:

"Staying focused primarily is having an industry and a set of clients/customers who are doing very exciting things."

In Patrick's life the importance of focus can be traced to being raised by parents who lived through the depression.

"I had a minimal allowance as a kid and grew up hearing all sorts of anecdotes about the depression.

Those anecdotes painted very vivid pictures. My parents were not wealthy people and I was expected to work hard."

So by early in life Patrick appreciated that focus could be important for building a wall against the "danger of the economy."

Patrick considers himself blessed that he was able to find a career that he loves, and wishes the same for others.

"If I were trying to convince people what it takes, it would be defining their path.

It sounds hackneyed, but those who don't find their paths are always studying for the final exam but really hating the subject matter.

You have to find your path."

It is clear that the daily challenge also helps keep Patrick focused.

What makes him want to get up in the morning and do it all over again? "One thing is the competition.

You know that your brilliant innovative idea has the life span of a nanosecond before your competitors pick it up. So you have to stay on your game all the time.

Your dynamic premier product this year may be shelved along with the horse and buggy next year."

Patrick also credits the "great spouse" factor in maintaining focus.

"There's no question that's been my case.

First of all my wife has been very understanding about my absences and ruining weekends.

She has managed to carry it all, and she has always been an incredibly trusted advisor.

When I'm veering off the path, she'll always say, 'here's what's happening,' and she is right 90% of the time."

Classic Corporate Leader

Frank is a man with a mission, namely, at this particular time, to "lead my company to greatness."

Given his ability to stay focused, there is little doubt that he will achieve his goal.

Now over 25 years out of college, Frank states that "there has never been a year in my adult life when I did not know what my goals for the upcoming year were."

And he monitors his progress on an on-going basis, including a major yearly checkup. "At the end of each year, I ask myself three question:

Do I like what I did this year?

Do I want to do more of it next year?

Do others think I did well?

If it's a yes to all three, I move on to set next year's goals."

Ironically, however, Frank is reluctant to analyze where his drive and zeal for planning come from.

"I have been self-driven as long as I can remember. I wish I knew where it came from.

It's like a magic formula with me and I don't want to disturb it!"

Because his goals are medium and long-term, Frank knows that each day counts, and this drives him to be up every morning-and he is a morning person, doing his best work before noon.

As soon as he nears one goal, he makes sure that the next one is on the horizon to receive his attention and energy. "Always move forward. Always know where you're going-you'll get there."

Frank confesses that his main obstacle over the years has been "not enough hours in the day," but he has resisted the temptation to work around the clock.

He has learned the value of being able to say No, to "level the work load, resize the job and reset expectations."

His huge output of energy, he is the first to admit, depends on the "ability to kick back and let someone else worry about all this stuff that you do.

You have to turn if off occasionally-otherwise you'd go bonkers."

For Frank, considerable energy must also be devoted to recreation: "I play as hard as I work."

Given his intense planning and goal setting, Frank is able to say, "I have a record of accomplishments to fall back on.

I rarely if ever fail." So his favorite quote is no surprise: "There are no problems; there are only solutions."