Recession. Secession. Depression. Confessions. Layoffs. Payoffs. Ripoffs. Scandals and Schemes. It’s enough to make your head spin. Being a leader in the 21st century is like being trapped in an episode of Whose Line is it Anyway! A steady stream of demands, deadlines, crises and conflicting desires are zooming toward you at the speed of light, and yet, as a leader, you are required to maintain your cool, keep your team inspired and motivated, juggle everything perfectly and make it all look easy!
On Whose Line the talented improv artists are deftly able to spin the random elements thrown at them into great performances night after night. Years of disciplined study, training and rehearsal give them the skills to repeatedly adapt, excel and shine in an ever-changing and uncertain environment. You may be asking yourself what on earth these improv artists, whose goal is to entertain us, have to do with leadership, which is very serious business? I would answer that there are many skills that improv artists (or any artist) possess that are quite valuable to the leader, especially in rocky times. Let’s look at one of the essentials: Being Present.
BEING PRESENT. In improv, the artist must be laser-focused and present. Distraction is deadly because it limits the artist’s ability to effectively respond to the various elements thrown into the environment. In this age of multi-tasking and CrackBerry, it is impossible to be fully present, in-the-moment, every moment of every day. But—do you have the mental discipline to be present, FULLY present when you need to be? Can you get through a meeting, conversation, presentation or reading without your mind going off in a thousand different directions? Are you really listening when your direct report, colleague, boss, or significant other is talking to you, or have you perfected the art of looking like you are listening? You know, making intense eye contact, nodding, um hmm’ing, responding at the appropriate times, while all the time you’re thinking about your last or next crisis.
Being present is the foundation for leading in turbulent times. With so much going on at such a rapid pace, leaders are poised for successful performance when they are present enough to pick up the clues that are around them, intercept potential problems, redirect effort and resources and leverage emergent opportunities. Being present can be challenging, but the rewards are great for a leader who masters this mental discipline. And it is easy to practice.
TRY THIS: The next time you are working on a project or talking to someone and your mind moves to something else, or you have the urge to check your BlackBerry or answer your cell phone, take a deep breath and choose to stay laser-focused on the task at hand for at least 5 minutes. It will seem like an eternity. You may feel like you are going to explode, but just keep breathing deeply and slowly and re-focus. You may have to do this several times during the five-minute practice session. That’s ok. Do it anyway. Keep breathing deeply and re-focus. Keep breathing deeply and re-focus. And fairly quickly, you will find yourself fully present in the moment. As with any new skill, practice makes perfect. Try this once a day for 5 minutes at a time. Then increase to twice a day, in the morning and in the afternoon, for 5 minutes each time. Within a week or two, you will be surprised by how quickly you can get laser-focused on a task, an issue or even a crisis. Once you have mastered the mental discipline of being present, you will understand that it is an essential ingredient of leading successfully in turbulent times.
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