When is it Right to Focus on Attention?

Organisational Attention

Understanding an organisation's unique focus of attention is always helpful.  But, not every change requires a shift of attention.


Learn to spot when shifting attention is a vital first step to the change you need to make.
Key Points:
  • Most changes work well because they fall within an organisation's existing focus of attention
  • When things don't work, shifting attention may be the answer
  • Some types of change are more likely to require a shift of attention before they can succeed
  • Learning to spot the signs can mean the difference between success and failure
What Is Going On?

Change is never without some level of frustration.  But, at the end of the day, most changes within an organisation go relatively smoothly.

A new product launch, a new IT system, a new promotion.

Easy, they all fall within the existing focus of attention.

Where it gets really frustrating is when an organisation keeps dropping balls, resisting change or, ignoring obvious threats and opportunities.

Maybe you need to be more customer focused, improve quality, be quicker to market, reduce costs.

Probably, to you, and a few people around you, it seems obvious what needs doing.

You've told people often enough, so why doesn't everyone just do something about it?

Is it that they're not listening?  Do they not care?  Or, are they just incompetent?

In some cases things have gone further.

The CEO has told people what they expect.  A new strategy has been signed off.  New values have been communicated.  Still nothing changes.

You've replaced the director in charge with someone from a company that really gets this stuff.  Still nothing changes.

You've changed the structure.  You've created new responsibilities.  Still nothing changes.

You realise that the message is not getting through to the front line, so massive roadshows have been organised.  Now everyone knows what's expected of them.  Still nothing changes.

You've sent them all on a training course at huge expense.  Still nothing changes.
WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON!!!
What "the hell" is going on, is this:

You've got people throughout your organisation who are good at doing things the way they do them now.  They are supported by the systems you've put in place.  Their objectives, rewards, values all encourage them to carry on the way they always have.  Collectively they make a complex system that is highly resistant to change.
Train driven from behind
Leading From Behind

To understand the situation you first need to recognise that senior leaders typically lead from behind, not from the front.

Look at the image above of a train being pushed by an engine at the back. This represents the way organisations typically operate.

The lead carriage is quite some distance from the engine and the couplings are deliberately flexible.

Transmitting any meaningful force from the engine to the lead carriage is dependent on the tracks.

For the CEO and other senior leaders to be effective at driving an organisation forward they are dependent on the systems, processes and structures that focus attention on the desired outcomes and deliver their edicts down through the layers of hierarchy to those on the front line.

But what happens when a change is required that takes an organisation away from the established organisational attention?

What happens when you remove the tracks?
Train without tracks
Despite their best attempts, senior leaders are forced to realise that their ability to steer the organisation has severe limitations.

Shifting Attention

For a train to change direction without tracks the lead carriage needs to be able to pull the train towards the new target.

From an organisational perspective this means that those on the front line need to be paying attention to the new direction and using all their initiative to steer towards it.

Quite a challenge when attention is so firmly hardwired in to an organisation and the carriage at the front is not used to being given steerable wheels.

It's doable, but it takes sustained effort.

Read some of the related articles to find out how, but first decide if you really need to do it.

When to Shift Attention

Every organisation has a unique focus of attention and therefore, clearly, every organisation will need to shift attention for different reasons.
When You Might Need to Shift Attention
It could be that you are a rapidly growing startup.  

You've been lean and flexible, you've been focused on your customers or your product, everything has been going brilliantly but now you've expanded and expanded.  

Your systems are a mess, your processes are all over the place, your managers don't know how to get the best out of people.

You need a shift of attention.

Maybe you are a huge, long established FTSE 100 company.  

You have a system and a process for everything.

But, new more agile companies are taking your core business, or the goal posts have shifted and the world now expects a level of customer service that you're too internally focused to be able to deliver.

You need a shift of attention.

Maybe you are small village primary school.  

You've prided yourself on the nurturing, fun, community focused environment you've created for the children.

But, teaching standards have not kept pace with the national curriculum and parents are getting disgruntled by the lack of professional discipline.

You need a shift of attention.
In short, ask yourself this question:
"Am I asking people to focus on something they are not explicitly accustomed to focus on?"
If the answer is yes, then it's simple, you need to get them to shift their attention.

But, don't forget, your organisation is a complex system for focusing attention and just asking people to shift their focus of attention does not work!

You need to be much, much smarter than that.
Created 28/07/2018
Last Updated 07/08/2018