Today's Business Lessons
How would you describe the times we’re in today?
I’ve two descriptions you may find useful: we are living in an age of permanent urgency and in the midst of endless distraction.
My corporate clients tell me that the number one challenge they see
in their people is engagement. There was a time when competition was in
the share of the market, and terms like “wallet share” are the
buzzwords. In our current situation, there’s now the battle for
“mindshare,” competition has heated up immensely, and the buzzword has
become “attention share.”
There are just so many things around us screaming to get our
attention. Is this the reason why teachers complain that students today
have shorter attention span? I don’t know, but I did a talk for the high
school students of a very prestigious school, and all 1,900-plus of
them were inside a non-air-conditioned gym, and after I spoke for almost
one and a half hours, they still wanted more. But the effort I exerted
in giving the talk required every bit of my energy.
Speakers complain and tell me that it’s more challenging these days
to hold the attention of participants. Maybe that’s why some event
organizers give out “early-bird” prizes, to encourage them to come in
early, and then raffle prizes, to encourage them to stay.
It’s so hard to get engagement these days. We have more e-mails to
answer, more texts to reply to, more phone calls to return, more
customers and clients to please, more tasks to juggle, more meetings to
attend, more places to go, and more hours we feel we must work to avoid
falling farther behind.
Doing Facebook doesn’t help either.
The technologies that make instant communication possible anywhere at
any time speed up decision-making, create efficiencies and fuel a truly
global marketplace. But too much of a good thing eventually becomes a
bad thing. The more technology develops, the more we need to perform. So
much is expected from us. And so activities become furious. And these
furious activities exact silent costs: less capacity for focused
attention, less time for any given task, and less opportunity to think
reflectively and long term.
The lack of engagement extracts costs, most of which is invisible. Successful companies
understand this, and this is why they punctuate their corporate
activities with life enrichment programs designed to provide healthy
recreation to break the monotony and routine. I’ve been invited to such
lunch and learn sessions where I talked on different subject matters
away from work and business. I provided “inspirational speeches” that
sometimes take two hours, but no one stands up to leave the room until
it’s over.
Human beings can’t operate the way computers do – continuously, at
maximum speed, for a long period of time, multi-tasking – and still be
expected to be engaged. Even the most sophisticated computers depreciate
in effectivity and/or efficiency over time.
Humans are God’s creations. We are designed to grow and develop. We
want to increase our capacity over time, but we also need depth of
understanding, fun and humor, and social interaction
If you want your people to be engaged, provide them with
life-enhancing activities and programs that would help them grow
holistically and not just in the one dimension of work.
Every person doesn’t only need to make a living. Each one should also learn to make a life.
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