Limited attention…

Tuesday, six crazies gathered in the 3PP to work on their core. I had set up six workout stations that we would systematically rotate through over the course of 30 minutes. We would work for 60 seconds, rest and transition to the next station for 30 seconds and repeat. Before the workout began, I systematically walked everybody through every exercise station and demonstrated exactly what was to be done. I verified that everyone understood what was expected. All acknowledged that they did, and Chad was already in the TRX chomping at the bit…

My last instruction was regarding the stopwatch. The person working at station 3 would read the stopwatch and shout out 30 when we were midway through and 10 when there were only 10 seconds to go. Got it.

Everything started off great. We chattered a bit as we worked and even laughed a bit during the first few minutes. This euphoria was short lived. Within 5 minutes somebody went to the wrong station and 2 people had failed the 30, 10 alert. One commented to me that he had completely forgotten the instructions and couldn’t remember what rep we were even on.

This is normal. When we get tired physically or mentally, we go into “energy save” mode. We look for shortcuts,we focus our attention on what we think is most important, we lose our ability for the most basic forms of recall, and we miss a whole bunch. We under-perform.

Your team is most likely feeling like they’re overwhelmed, under pressure, and unsure about what’s most important. Tune into this. Leaders, develop the habit of reminding, repeating, and redirecting. This is your job. This is why you are out front.

Does your team know where to give their limited attention right now?

Do you?

Tell me more, my friend.

Tell me more…