Vacuums are Opportunities

There are times when teams, in their collective energies to achieve the goals of the organization, blow the operation apart. It can happen at the project, departmental initiative, company joint-venture and enterprise alike, every one producing a wave of economic, social and political crisis through their respectively scaled ecosystems. When this happens, it is typically evidence that there is insufficient focus in the team to coordinate actions and leverage asymmetrical strengths to deliver at even a minimal level of achievement. The balancing forces of growth and scale were misaligned. There is something fundamental that must be restored or adapted.

Pushing for resolution without fully appreciating the, er, gravity of the situation could be counter-productive to catastrophic. Pushing may upset the stasis of the free fall and disperse the resources further apart and at accelerated rates. Its better to identify what is in the way of the natural tendency of a team to work together toward a shared objective and remove it from consideration. Make the time to assess the multiple focal points across the team members and organizations. Mapping the stakeholder interests will reveal where they have not been able to rationalize the work they are contributing to the vision any more. And suggest where in the operation adjustments must be made to capitalize on the current opportunities.

Focus is at the core of both creating and restoring Teams. Focus is what allows individuals to bond with the mission and work collaboratively toward it. Team restoration is the underlying strategy of program rescue, turnarounds and launching new ideas alike.

Do not underestimate the central importance of FOCUS to your business.

Without focus, you exist without intention. Your actions are empty motions. Their effects can be neither advantageous nor disadvantageous as there are no references on which to base assessments. There can be neither failure nor success without measurement against a reference point. There can not be any clear communications to announce your intentions, and to enlist neutrality or assist. There are no words to describe succinctly without the focus that intention brings to evoke informed responses calibrated to contributing to the conversation. Without this, there can be no meaningful planning or directing or managing of doing. There can be no performance improvements.

Without a shared focus, team members and entire organizations can conceptualize problem statements and solutions differently. Like the six men in Socrates' fable, we perceive our respective worlds vividly, and with as much certainty as the other team members do in theirs. We work as best we can on our respective aspects of the strategy toward the mission. When we see different worlds, we lead our resources across different versions of the same operational landscapes, pulling the operation in different directions rather than concertedly. When assumptions underpinning the will to continue in the current way disintegrates from the stress of fighting against nature, the implosion happens and the team goes into free fall. Time is of the essence.

The clarity of focus is the gift that Leaders can bring to those in the free fall vacuum of directionless action and diminishing returns. Focus will create its own karmic mass to get gravity working for you. The best immediate tactic when this becomes evident is to gain favor quickly, while disbelief is suspended in exchange for a new way, with material proof that it can deliver results in a world they all share a perspective on: the current crisis. The sooner you deliver on the promise of the vision with some proof of value, the faster your impact will matriculate through the culture of the team, then the organization into measurable progress toward the strategy.

Vacuums are opportunities for seismic positive change. Be the Leader that never allows a good opportunity for major progress go to waste.