Defying Workplace Gravity: Strategies for Enhanced Focus and Execution

Focusing is extremely important, but many companies struggle to reduce the distractions that compete for their attention.

This often leads to larger companies facing challenges when trying to navigate and adjust to the rapidly evolving environment of organic growth.

Google’s algorithm updates have struck hard and left casualties.

Even small rank changes in top positions have an outsized impact.

Consumer behavior on the internet is messy and hard to track

Teams are shrinking: 80,000 tech workers have been laid off in 2024 so far.1

Marketing budgets took a hit, dropping by 10 to 20% over the past two years before showing signs of recovery.

On average, tech workers dedicate two out of five workdays to meetings and email, leaving only 43% of their time for actual tasks.

No other platform has as many changes in requirements. Google has rolled out 8 Core, 19 major, and 75-150 minor updates in the last 3 years. The company highlights thousands of improvements annually.

In a world filled with distractions, one of the essential skills is managing attention. If we struggle as individuals, how can we expect teams to be any different?

How to cultivate focus and execute better

Image Credit: Lyna ™

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No Win Without Focus

Sir Isaac Newton realized that the sun’s gravity causes planets to orbit it in an elliptical path. Gravity in the workplace is a distraction from the focus of individuals and teams:

Meetings.

Fire drills.

Red tape.

Strategy pivots.

Too many goals.

Alignment overhead.

Too many cooks in the kitchen.

Procurement and legal rabbit holes.

Non-critical emails and Slack messages.

The larger a company gets, the stronger its gravity.

Taken to an extreme, it takes companies forever to launch even a single feature, and they fall behind the competition.

For individuals, the impact of scattered attention is significant. It can result in not accomplishing tasks, lacking impact, and even facing the risk of losing a job. Additionally, it can lead to exhaustion and burnout.

As Ryan Holiday wisely said, "Tranquility comes from doing less." However, many teams operate in a scattered manner, similar to a teenager trying to multitask between watching Netflix, scrolling through TikTok, and texting.

Individual and team focus are closely intertwined. When a team is unfocused, it can affect individuals as well. Studies show that two-thirds of people find it challenging to muster the energy needed to perform their job.

When I feel overwhelmed, my brain often prompts me to seek a quick pick-me-up by checking my email. However, engaging in small tasks and busy work does not equate to true accomplishment.

Real impact comes from working through tedious, complex problems.

We cannot erase gravity, but we can do five things better:

Communication.

Prioritization.

Strategy.

Red Tape.

Meetings.

Better Communication

Unclear communication is a major distraction that drains our attention. It often leads to wasting time trying to understand what others are trying to say.

At Shopify, we set a high standard for the internal communications that were shared with the Growth organization. We carefully considered how they were presented and framed.

It’s easy to @ your whole team on Slack, but what people really need is key information:

What’s going on?

How is it relevant to me?

What do I need to know/do?

Lazy communication comes with a high speed cost. In the book "Smart Brevity," the authors offer a straightforward approach to crafting clear statements. Start by hooking the reader with a concise and powerful teaser of six words or less.

Explain what recipients need to know in the first sentence.

Explain why it matters.

Offer a choice to go deeper by providing more optional context.

Most important: Think about one thing you want people to remember – not more. Nobody has time to read a Slack novel.

Improved Focus

Peter Thiel implemented a culture of intense focus at PayPal. He emphasized the importance of prioritization by only discussing the company's top priority with managers. They were held accountable for focusing solely on their main contribution to the company.

Focus is important because it helps us prioritize what is worth our time and attention.

Engineers are experts at prioritizing tasks. If they want to add something to their roadmap, they have to make room by removing something else.

An effective roadmap operating system has only a few lines of code:

What’s the goal?

What are the top 3 things that get us there?

For those three things, what do we need in terms of people, assets, time, support from other teams, and tools?

For those three things, who does what, by when?

Defend yourself and your team as much as possible from anything else.

When looking back at your time at a company, you won't think about your fourth, fifth, and sixth priorities. Instead, you'll remember the impact of priorities one, two, and three.

In Cal Newport's latest book, "Slow Productivity," he highlights that doing less is one of the key ways to improve the quality of your work.

One piece of advice that I find most helpful is to double the time you estimate for a project. This simple tip can help you cut down your project timeline by about 50%, while also increasing the chances of delivering the project on time and with high quality.

Underestimating the time it takes to complete projects is a common mistake that can lead us into overcommitment.

Better Strategies

It can be challenging for a team to follow poor strategies and it can lead to confusion among team members.

From what I have seen, many managers tend to focus on using complex strategies, but they often overlook the key aspect: a good strategy involves doing something unique compared to competitors.

Instead of trying to outwork your competitors, it's better to focus on doing something unique that highlights your competitive advantage.

By combining differentiation with prioritization, your top three projects should demonstrate how you are able to achieve the same objective as your competitors, but in a distinct and unique way.

Instead of creating 100 blog articles, consider developing a programmatic play or a list of tools. You could also utilize contributors to write the content instead of managing a large in-house team.

Many strategies lack clarity. A quick test for clarity is to see if you can summarize your strategy in one paragraph (TL;DR), one page (high-level), and one document (in-depth).

Streamlining Processes

Many companies face the challenge of dealing with excessive bureaucracy, which can hinder productivity. In some cases, it can take weeks and numerous alignment meetings just to sign up for a basic SaaS tool.

Procurement and legal teams can slow companies down and frustrate teams beyond means.

The key to having speed and a good evaluation process is clear guidelines when legal or procurement steps in.

During a meeting with a former client, the legal team of the fastest-growing fintech startup provided us with important guidelines. We learned about what we are allowed to say and what is prohibited. We also discussed when we need legal approval and when we can proceed without it.

It is the responsibility of the team manager or organization leader to address these matters. Although it may seem tedious, once the boundaries are set, teams can work more efficiently and concentrate on executing tasks.

Reduce the Number of Meetings

Tobi Lütke, the founder and CEO of Shopify, believes that meetings are not efficient and called them a "bug." To address this issue, his leadership team implemented the "Chaos Monkey," a script that deletes all recurring meetings with more than two participants. Other companies have also put restrictions in place to limit the time spent on meetings. For example, Calendly only allows meetings to be scheduled between noon and 5 p.m.

Most meetings are often unproductive, either because they are poorly organized, unnecessary, or just an excuse for people to chat.

It is important for every meeting to have a clear purpose, in addition to having an agenda. Essentially, meetings can be categorized into three types: socializing, sharing information, and making decisions.

Building relationships in the workplace is crucial, and socializing is perfectly fine. It's essential to be clear and not disguise socializing as a meeting to discuss work-related projects.

When it comes to sharing information, asynchronous meetings are more effective. Instead of gathering a big group of people, consider recording a video message or writing a memo to communicate effectively.

Decision-making meetings should be led by the decision maker and come with a pre-read. In many large organizations, decisions are often poorly framed. It's unclear who actually makes the decision, and the decision-maker lacks explicit criteria for how to make the decision.

Outlook: Can AI Help Us Regain Focus?

Show me how focused your team is, and I’ll show you a team that will win.

In large organizations, high gravity can make it difficult to adapt and innovate. However, smaller and more agile players have the opportunity to disrupt the status quo. The good news is that technology is helping to counteract this gravity, especially in the workplace.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has the ability to assist us in uncovering scattered information, bringing clarity to complex situations, and automating mundane administrative tasks that consume valuable time. This allows us to shift our focus towards more important matters that require our attention.

Microsoft's Future of Work report states that organizational knowledge is scattered across various platforms such as documents, conversations, apps, and devices. However, LLMs have the capability to collect and consolidate this information in ways that were not achievable before.

In the future, we will have the ability to ask LLMs questions about internal processes, such as inquiring about our top goals or whether something requires legal review. This will help us free up time to enhance our strategies and accomplish tasks efficiently.

However, this future may still be a few years down the road. In the meantime, there are steps we can take to enhance our focus and attention.

1 Layoffs.fyi

2 Marketing spending shows signs of growth, but AI adoption is slow: report; Beyond belt-tightening: How marketing can drive resiliency during uncertain times

3 Will AI Fix Work?

4 Workers Now Spend Two Full Days a Week on Email and in Meetings

5 Microsoft New Future of Work Report 2023

Featured Image: Paulo Bobita/Search Engine Journal

Editor's P/S:

The article highlights the importance of focus in the workplace, particularly for large companies facing challenges in adapting to a rapidly evolving environment. It emphasizes the detrimental effects of distractions, such as meetings, strategy pivots, and excessive bureaucracy, on individual and team productivity. The author suggests five key areas for improvement: communication, prioritization, strategy, red tape, and meetings. By streamlining these processes and reducing distractions, companies can enhance their focus and increase their chances of success.

Additionally, the article discusses the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) to assist in regaining focus by uncovering scattered information, bringing clarity to complex situations, and automating mundane tasks. The author acknowledges that this future is still a few years away but encourages readers to take steps to improve their focus and attention in the meantime. By implementing clear communication, prioritizing tasks, developing effective strategies, streamlining processes, and reducing unnecessary meetings, companies can create a more focused and productive work environment.