From Problems to Power: Conquer Challenges Like a Boss
Leaders, are you time short? If so then listen up! Time is the ultimate non-renewable resource, so why do we fritter it away so freely? Your time, energy and focus are precious, but are you in one of these predicaments:
● You find it easy to think of exciting ideas and start projects but you’ve got so many balls in the air you’re not completing what you started.
● You’re great at GSD but you’re either not making the progress or you’re not sure what direction you’re heading
● You’re firefighting and problem solving constantly
● Emotions are running high and you’ve been sucked into the ‘drama vortex’
We all know that in today’s frantic, attention overload, change-filled world, the ability to direct your focus is like a superpower. Every leader is fighting an endless battle against treacherous attention-snatchers: endless emails, surprise dramas, Google blackholes and soul-destroying meetings about meetings.
But what if I revealed a devilishly simple, 5-step process to channel your primal intensity precisely where it’s needed most? Introducing David Rock’s “Choose Your Focus” model – a force multiplier that will take your game to undreamed of levels. It looks simple yet it’s amazingly effective and powerful because we can all get sucked into one of the levels and lose sight of the others.
Step 1: Vision – Be Clear on Success
Start by vividly envisioning your ultimate success. Don’t just dream it – see it, feel it, hear it. Get absolutely clear on what conquest looks and tastes like. This is where you slip on Visionary Glasses and boldly create the future reality you want to inhabit.
Ask yourself these questions:
● ‘What does success look, feel and sound like?’
● ‘How will I know when I/we have achieved it?’
● ‘What is important to me/us about this?’
Vision is about stepping back to start with the end in mind to ensure your daily hustle is aligned with your overarching goals and dreams.
Problem Example: You’re the CEO of a legacy manufacturing company up to your ears in getting products out the door. But you’ve been so heads-down, pushing out products, that you completely missed the AI revolution and now you’re anxious about falling behind the market.
Solution: Pause, step out of the weeds to invest time into creating your new vision that harnesses the power of AI to keep your business current or even better, move you to a market leader position. A major advantage of this is that you can communicate this clear vision to your business and teams so everyone knows what they’re aiming for. Once this is done, move down to creating your plan.
“Stay focused, go after your dreams and keep moving toward your goals.”
– LL Cool J
Step 2: Planning – Map Your Path Forward
With your inspiring Vision created, it’s time to move to the Planning level. This is where you transform that big-picture dream into a concrete, actionable plan. You’ll break down your objectives into specific steps, allocate your resources strategically, and coordinate your team for maximum impact.
Problem Example: You’re the Head of Product for an e-commerce platform. You’ve finally woken up to the potential of AI to supercharge your operations – from demand forecasting to supply chain optimisation. But without a solid plan for integrating AI into your existing systems, training your team, your AI ambitions could quickly devolve into a tangled mess that will suck you down into problems and possibly drama.
Solution: Check, is your business vision still up to date and accurate for here and now? A vision is not fixed, it constantly evolves with your development and reality. As we’re seeing, change is only happening faster. Once your vision is confirmed, update your plan to fit the current environment and challenges.
Step 3: Detail – Sharpen Your Sword
Once you’ve charted your course, it’s time to dive into the nitty-gritty of execution at the Detail level. Mastery is in the details, miss the details and find yourself sliding down into problems and drama. In the world of focus, details are everything. As a leader, it’s your job to create a culture of excellence and continuous improvement in your team. This is the place where the rubber hits the road.
Problem Example: You’re a results-driven leader who prides yourself on solving problems, ticking off tasks and GSD. The problem is that with so much action you aren’t making the progress you forecasted and you’re not putting your head up out of the weeds to stay current with market developments. With all this hard work, your business actually seems to be losing ground in the market.
Answer: Take your foot off the gas, step back to find some fresh perspective and align with the vision. Check, do you have a clear vision or is this something that you haven’t done before?
Do you have a clear plan or have you jumped straight into frantically getting stuff done?
Invest time in creating your clear vision and plan to ensure you know what you’re aiming for and that you’re moving in the right direction. Direction is more important than speed! Step 4: Problem – Slay Your Dragons
Step 4: Problem – Slay Your Dragons
Despite your best-laid plans and rigorous attention to detail, problems are inevitable. Problems and challenges are part of life, but problems are not the same as drama. Problems have solutions. If we care enough, we can find a way to solve a problem.
Effective problem-solving requires staying objective, being agile and adaptive to change. This is where you view the challenge from multiple perspectives, quickly gather data and explore innovative solutions.
Problem Example: You’re the CEO of a cutting-edge FinTech company that’s staked its future on AI-powered fraud detection and risk analysis models. Despite your team’s best efforts, a sophisticated new breed of AI-powered fraud emerges, threatening to bypass your defences.
Without the ability to quickly analyse the threat, devise countermeasures, and retrain your AI systems, your multi-billion-dollar fraud-fighting empire could quickly crumble.
Solution: Any of the levels above will help when encountering problems. Questions to ask can include:
● Is this a one-off problem or part of a wider pattern?
● Are we still aligned to our vision or have we been sidetracked?
● Do we have a mitigation plan for this or do we need to return to planning?
● Once we have a clear plan, which steps are the highest priority?
● How can we turn this problem into a learning and forward motion?
Step 5: Drama – Say No to the ‘Drama Vortex’
Finally, we come to the Drama level. The first three levels are all essential to creating success and even the problem level we can plan for with identifying risks and creating mitigation plans.
The drama level is the only level that is not a useful part of your focus.
Drama is where the vision, planning, details and even the problem have fallen apart and all that is left is emotional charge. It’s not a productive place for you, your team or clients to be with the turbulent waters of human emotion, conflict, and interpersonal dynamics. As a leader, you need to diffuse tensions, resolve conflicts, and keep your team aligned and on point.
Problem Example: Let’s say you’re a GM of an insurance company. You’ve finally decided to take the AI plunge, bringing in a team of hotshot AI wizards to transform your archaic processes. But the culture clash is real – your old-school staff resists the disruption, turf wars erupt, and morale tanks.
Solution: The first essential step when being at the drama level is to recognise that you’re in the drama! This can be a challenge as you’re probably telling yourself a story about unmet expectations. You’re feeling the emotional charge and dropping ‘below the line’ with blaming, making excuses or denying there’s a problem.
Once you’ve moved ‘above the line’ to take responsibility for yourself you’re then able to align the team on the vision of the project with the compelling ‘why’. Connect the team with the shared vision, purpose and goal. With this in place you can confidently move down through the layers – map out the clear plan with responsibilities, divide up the details so the team can start doing the doing with a sense of purpose, clarity and motivation.
There you have it, leaders – the five powerful levels of David Rock’s “Choose Your Focus” model. Some questions to reflect on to make the most of this model:
● Which level do you resonate with the most? There’s probably one level that feels more comfortable as a home base.
● Where do you find yourself operating the most currently?
● Which level(s) are you not familiar or comfortable with? These could be a blindspot for you I hope this has inspired you to embrace this strategy and transform yourself into an unstoppable Force of Focused Leadership.
A word of caution: Mastering focus is an ongoing practice, you’ll need to continually audit where you’re placing your attention, prioritise accordingly, and hone your skills at each level. It’s a journey, not a destination.
“The ability to focus attention on important things is a defining characteristic of intelligence.” – Robert J. Shiller
Kelly Samson is a leadership & high-performing teams coach who empowers ambitious professionals and executives to manage stress, build resilience, improve EQ, and elevate performance.
