Book Summary - “Focus” by Daniel Goleman

 

Daniel Goleman, who is also the author of the bestselling book “EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE”, describes in this book “Focus- The Hidden driver of Excellence”, the need for paying attention and different kinds of distractions and their impacts in achieving excellence. This book also touches upon Leadership and how focus helps to become a great leader along with the need for having a big picture for long term humanity success.

The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. Albert Einstein once said. “We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift”.

Paying attention is a valuable skill, but it is getting forgotten due to more and more distractions in our day to day life which impacts our Focus. Understand how your brain works. Know when you are in control and when you are not in order to better focus.

Focus – 3 categories

·        Inner focus attunes us to our intuitions, guiding values, and better decisions.

·        Other focus smooths our connections to the people in our lives.

·        Outer focus lets us navigate in the larger world.

Will Power – Enhancement Methods

Attention regulates emotion and this blossoms into will power (destiny) and self-discipline. Focus holds the key to will power.  The three steps required to add Will Power are listed below-

·        Ability to voluntarily disengage our focus from objects of desire;

·        Resist distractions, keeping focus somewhere else

·         Keep our focus on a goal in the future

Distractions – 2 categories   

·        Sensory distractions are external factors that stimulate our brains, such as noises, new colors, tastes, smells, and sensations.

·        Emotional distractions can trigger an emotional outburst in you, hard to notice.

Empathy – Empathy is important, but you must know how to isolate it and use it according to your purpose; there are 2 categories  

·        Cognitive empathy helps us understand other people’s mental state and why they act in a specific way. It enables us to see the world through the eyes of others and put ourselves in their place.

·        Emotional empathy allows us to feel what others are feeling. It is a physical phenomenon that makes us feel sad and happy from a stimulus from another person.

Focus – from a Leadership Perspective

A good leader manages to direct own team in the right direction to achieve audacious, meaningful goals. Needs self-knowledge and readiness to care about own people.

Focus ensures Mindfulness and Self-Awareness which helps leaders to take smart decisions and quick recovery from any setbacks, hurt or disappointment. Emotional resilience comes into play as we recover from the setbacks of life. In order to lead, “maintaining focus” is essential which means not only the leader’s focus but also the ability to direct and develop the followers to the right path.
Good leaders know when to switch between: Becoming more efficient within the focus and Intelligent digressing -  Explore outside of the current focus by selectively detaching from the current focus to seek new creative possibilities.

Detailed Book Summary - “Focus” by “Daniel Goleman”

How often you feel that you are struggling to sustain concentration in anything serious? Be it in reading or listening or typing or even talking to someone? This is called Attention deficit disorder (ADD) which affects everyone, especially in the middle of several distractions including social media, internet, phone calls etc. Today let us understand more about the trend of “paying attention” in this scenario and its impact to our day to day life.

Let’s begin summarizing the book “Focus- The Hidden driver of Excellence” written by Daniel Goleman, who is also the author of the bestselling book “EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE”.  The author describes the need for paying attention and different kinds of distractions and their impacts in achieving excellence.

The Subtle Faculty

The book starts with an interesting experience of how a watchman keeping an eye on customers entering a shop. That explains clearly how he performs his detective job of noticing any early signs of any thieves entering the shop.  As per watchman, “I have been doing this so long, I just know the signs.” That explains his focus, which is his full-time day job.

For leaders to get results, they need Triple Focus – Inner, Other and Outer.  Inner focus attunes us to our intuitions, guiding values, and better decisions. Other focus smooths our connections to the people in our lives. Outer focus lets us navigate in the larger world. Your focus is your reality. How we deploy our attention, determines what we see.

Paying attention is a valuable skill, but it is getting forgotten due to more and more distractions in our day to day life which impacts our Focus.  It was interesting to note that in 2005, at the third All Things Digital conference, hosts unplugged the Wi-Fi in the main ball room seeing continuous partial attention of the audience as they were all working in their laptops connected to Wi-Fi and not glued to the action onstage. Tony Schwartz, consultant who coaches leaders says” Attention is now the number-one issue on the minds of our clients”. Surprisingly, way back in 1977, Nobel-winning economist “Herbert Simon” warned that “wealth of information creates a poverty of attention” and this became true later in the information rich world.

The Anatomy of Attention

Distractions can be classified into two categories – Sensory distractions and Emotional distractions. Sensory distractions are external factors that stimulate our brains, such as noises, new colors, tastes, smells, and sensations.  Emotional distractions can trigger an emotional outburst in you, hard to notice.

It is better to understand how our brain works while paying attention and based on this people with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) can be detected. As per Richard Davidson, a neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin, “Phase-locking” is the process of brain wave synchrony with the sound we hear. Using this process, those who have attention poverty, a drop in synchrony will be observed. With focused attention, brain can learn faster, as it maps new information with known information making new neural connections.

Let me ask a question now – What is the technical term for brain wave synchrony with a sound you hear? If you can answer off the top of your head, you have ben sustaining focused attention while you read or listen.  If you can’t recall the answer, don’t worry, you are not alone. A reader’s mind typically wanders anywhere from 20% to 40% of the time while pursuing a text. Deep reading or thinking demands sustaining a focused mind.

Our brain has two semi independent largely separate mental systems. Neocortex is brain’s topmost layer having massive computing power and operates constantly. Lower part of brain having system neural wiring, which notifies brain top. So, it is as though there are two minds to work -- The bottom-up mind and top-down mind.

It will be interesting to understand what the bottom-up mind and top-down mind does while we pay attention. The bottom-up mind is faster in brain time, involuntary and automatic and impulsive, driven by emotions. On the other hand, the top-down mind is slower and voluntary, but effortful. It is also the seat of self-control and capable of learning new models. The bottom-up system multi tasks whereas the top-down wiring adds talents like self-awareness, reflection, deliberation and planning. Intentional top-down focus offers the mind a lever to manage our brain. We need to navigate life top-down despite the constant undertow of bottom-up winds and drives.

The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. Albert Einstein once said, “We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift”. We need free time where we can sustain an open awareness. Open time lets the creative spirit flourish; tight schedules kill it. No doubt, we are surprised to see that several brilliant insights and innovative ideas emerge during a walk or a bath or on a long ride or on vacation. This is due to the luxury of having protected time which is enough to think freely like a creative cocoon.

Key challenge Author mentions is finding balance between mind-wandering state and full concentration.  The most powerful distractor is our own mind wandering and leading to emotional preoccupations. Meditation or Mindfulness quiets the brain circuits for “me-focused” mental chatter. Similar way, some dangerous sports activities like mountain climbing etc. demands total focus, but when we climb down mountain, we see the worries and cares reach back. Tightly focused attention gets fatigued-much like an overworked muscle, causing a drop in effectiveness. Antidote is to take rest. But what will help mental muscle to have enough rest? Will self-awareness help? To know more on this, stay tuned for Part2. Till then Happy Reading and happy focusing! Bye Bye!

Self-Awareness

It is interesting to note that there are sensations in our body that tell us when a choice feels wrong or right. As per Author, that is the “inner rudder”, which can give us gut feelings, helping at many levels before any reasoned conclusions. “Me and I” are two major streams of self-awareness. “Me” relates to our past and future, whereas “I” refers to present. How do performers know when they’re nearing perfection? It’s the feeling, you know it in your joints before you know it in your head.

Self-assessment is an important exercise we must do, and we need to see ourselves as others see. This is the ability to judge ourselves, wearing shoes of others. Despite attention problems among children, another aspect for better life outcome is greater self-control. In this context, Author refers to 5^th century India, where monks were encouraged to consider human body as “A BAG OF BONES” to build detachment from one’s own body to boost “will power”.  “Willpower” keeps us focused on our goals despite the tug of our impulses, passions, habits and carvings. In 1970s, Psychology’s playbook also included multiple strategies to enable self-control among kids while they learn and grow to pursue their goals in the face of hot emotional reactions. Achieving self-control resisting temptations which distract our minds from paying attention is a challenge. This is required for a better living.

Reading Others

It is extremely important to have the ability to judge others at reasonable sensitivity level.  This is by listening to their words and observing their body language followed by our own analysis. “Observing people was a game we played in our family” according to Justine Casselle, who did several experiments on analyzing movements of human body parts while they communicate. Casselle mentioned “gestures always occur just before the most emphasized part of what you’re saying”. Everything we attend to in another person generates meaning at an unconscious level and our bottom up circuitry constantly reads it. These hidden messages have powerful impacts and can fine-tune sensitivity.

Empathy is important, but you must know how to isolate it and use it according to your purpose. There are 2 categories: Cognitive empathy and Emotional empathy. Cognitive empathy helps us understand other people’s mental state and why they act in a specific way. It enables us to see the world through the eyes of others and put ourselves in their place. Emotional empathy – “I feel your pain” - allows us to feel what others are feeling. It is a physical phenomenon that makes us feel sad and happy from a stimulus from another person.  Finally, Empathic Concern – “I’m here for you”, first emerges early in infancy. When one baby hears another baby crying, he or she too starts crying. The Author while explaining more on empathy in the field of medical science, emphasizes that empathy actually saves time in the long run, if balanced well.

Social sensitivity is essential when we deal with others in any eco-system. How appropriately we act in public, decided by our own self-awareness. Those who do business with diverse workforce in a global economy need sensitivity to such unspoken norms. An example mentioned in this book is the response expected during the moment of exchanging business cards in Japan versus America. The cross-cultural talent for social sensitivity appears related to cognitive empathy.

Understandably, we focus on people we value most. The more you care about someone, the more attention you pay- and the more attention you pay, the more you care. Attention interweaves with love.

The Bigger Context

Author explains the need of collective attention focus using big data and system knowledge for solving problems like solutions for pandemics, water scarcity, global warming, etc. This needs collecting and observing the patterns followed in the problems and getting the right solutions using big data collected after selecting the appropriate criteria for processing it right. This calls for system aware problem solving and the need to be attentionally flexible.

An example to solve a systemic problem – reason to find why 65% of all the magazines printed in the United states were never sold.  For years no one could solve the problem due to system blindness.  Getting the complete system into the room was the challenge. Another worst result of system blindness occurs when leaders implement a strategy to solve a problem- but ignore the pertinent system dynamics.  Example – Traffic Jams? Building more and widened roads gave only short-term relief in congestion.  It never considered the increase in number of vehicles and number of increased trips due to better traffic capacity. The dynamics of highway systems was never considered.

According to John Sterman from MIT, much of the time people attributes what happens to them to events close in time and space. But in reality, it’s the result of the dynamics of the larger system within which they are embedded. We don’t notice what is not there- and neither the mental system alerts us to this. Only the leaf-rustling problems get our attention, not the big ones that will kill us.  That is the significance of system knowledge. Author warns about distant threats quoting words from Indian yogi Neem Karoli Baba “You can plan for a hundred years, but you don’t know what will happen the next moment.” This emphasizes the need for system literacy to prevent system blindness among people. Solving system-level problems takes system focus.

Smart Practice

Smart practice calls for attention with persistence, even though it may be boring.  Daydreaming defeats practice. Paying full attention seems to boost the mind’s processing speed, strengthen synaptic connections and expand or create neural networks for what we are practicing.

Think of attention as a mental muscle that we can strengthen by a workout. Memorization works that muscle, as does concentration.  The mental analog of lifting a free weight over and over is noticing when our mind wanders and bringing it back to target. This happens to be the essence of one-pointed focus in meditation, which seen through the lens of cognitive neuroscience, typically involves attention training. In the mental gym, as in any fitness training, the specific of practice makes all the difference. Positive emotions widen our span of attention

Negativity focuses us on a narrow range-what’s upsetting us. As an example, if we get several positive feedbacks and appreciations, we may lose sleep on one negative feedback or unpleasant comment came to us.

The core elements of smart practice are potent combination of joy, smart tactics and full focus. Smart practice gets to a more fundamental level, cultivating the basics of attention upon which the triple focus (outer, other, inner) builds.

Author mentions video games may strengthen attention skills in children, like rapidly filtering out visual distractions. But they do  little to amp up a more crucial skill for learning, sustaining focus on a gradually evolving body of information- such as paying attention in class and understanding what you’re reading and connecting to what read last week or before.

The Well-Focused Leader

A good leader manages to direct own team in the right direction to achieve audacious, meaningful goals. Leader needs self-knowledge and readiness to care about own people.  The leaders need the full range of inner, other and outer focus to excel- and that a weakness in any one of them can throw a leader off balance.

Focus ensures Mindfulness and Self-Awareness which helps leaders to take smart decisions and quick recovery from any setbacks, hurt or disappointment. Emotional resilience comes into play as we recover from the setbacks of life. In order to lead, “maintaining focus” is essential which means not only the leader’s focus but also the ability to direct and develop the followers to the right path. Good leaders know when to switch between: Becoming more efficient within the focus and Intelligent digressing. Selectively detaching from the current focus, one can seek new creative possibilities. Again, there is a balance needed.

“To harvest the collective wisdom of a group, you need two things: mindful presence and a sense of safety” says Stephen Wolff, a principal at GEI Partners. People need to feel free to speak out. Team also creates a positive atmosphere, having fun is a sign of shared flow. According to Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO, “Play equals trust, a space where people can take risks. Only by taking risks do we get to the most valuable new ideas.”

The Big Picture

Author concludes the book mentioning the need for leading for the long future- Leaders Must have triple focus, long vision and thoughts for humanity. As per Peter Senge, MIT teacher, “Essential to understanding systems is your time horizon. The bigger your horizon, the bigger the system you can see”. The book ends with remarks from Dalai Lama stressing the need for long term focus, addressing issues that matter for humanity in the long run. Dalai Lama suggests three self-queries for checking our motivation – 1) Is it just for me or for others? 2) Is it for the benefit of the few or the many? 3) Is it for now or for the future?

With this we come to an end of the summary of the book “Focus” by “Daniel Goleman”