creative process | CorporateIntel

There’s a theme running through our workplace this year. It’s as simple as it is profound. It’s not revolutionary; it’s more of a reminder.

It’s all about focus.

Focus matters. Focus works. Focus wins.

The “what” and “how” of focus are somewhat obvious. We need to set clear priorities, narrow our agenda to initiatives that significantly elevate performance, add resources to projects that will have an impact, and let go of distractions that dilute our effectiveness.

The “why” of focus might be less obvious. We focus out of necessity. To the extent we choose to believe this is not a necessity, we either overwhelm ourselves in the endless regression of task lists or we embark on so many things with so little precision that we risk accomplishing little at all.

Focus requires us to make critical choices, to sort our many priorities into real priorities. When we ask why we are forcing ourselves to focus, the answer becomes clear. It’s the best chance we have of testing a bold thesis against a data-driven outcome. When we have evidence something works, we can double down on it. When the data shows otherwise, we can comfortably move on and reallocate always-limited resources.

When talking to musicians, you often hear there is as much importance in the notes that aren’t played as those that are. A composition is a series of choices. It even encompasses a structured use of rests. Poetry and rhetorical speech are similar. There are words left in and words extracted in the creative process to keep the emphasis on the words that remain.

Work is similar. We have endless choices for tasks, but time is forever in short supply. Not focusing is the same as not applying discipline to our business plans. It’s somewhat ironic that working oneself to exhaustion can be a reflection of lazy planning. Pick the wrong projects, pick too many of them, put in endless hours, and you might come up with nothing.

That’s another reason why we focus — to have confidence that the hours we invest are in fact invested for a prescribed return and not squandered on trivial contributions.

When we fail to focus, we nibble around the edges.

When we focus, we apply editorial selection to our competitive obsession.

I recently corresponded with a colleague on how easy it is to get lost in the day-to-day. Yes, a text will pop up every few minutes, email is without end, the phone will ring with the latest crisis when we least want to be interrupted. If we start the year with focus and then look back on the year with an evaluation of that focus, it becomes clear if those interruptions derailed us from critical focus. We have to anticipate interruptions — they are unavoidable — but if we did the hard work of applying focus upfront and then did the even harder work of staying focused on those priorities, the interruptions are unlikely to derail us.

I say it all the time: Do less, do it better.

How sure am I? Very, very sure. Each year I compel a process of goal-setting with our teams where we actively debate what things matter more than others. Throughout the year, we periodically stack rank these priorities as technology quickly evolves and business pressures change. Leaders in the company have the freedom to motivate their teams as they will, but once we have agreed on areas of focus, it is expected that those tasks will be accomplished with as much detail as necessary to equal or exceed the expected results.

At the end of the year, we look back on what got done and the impact it had. Of course, priorities shift in real-time due to current events and market forces, but I have never ended a year with a totally derailed team and no significant impact on our success.

It is true we can’t do everything and no one should believe we can. We do get a lot done. We improve processes. We align data with suppositions. We help each other get better at our jobs. We mandate exceeding the expectations of our customers.

A lot of people talk about focus. A lot fewer make it religion. If you look at the prized cohort of companies moving ahead of the competition, you are likely to see the embrace of focus.

Bring focus to bear and the year ahead will be clearer, brighter, more satisfying, and more rewarding. The alternative is often burnout and unmeasurable results. Think about next year’s review cycle and make the right commitments now. It’s not too late to get going on a breakthrough, just focus on that breakthrough and don’t let it get away from you for anything less.

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Photo: Pexels

It’s a new year. With another trip around the sun completed and ahead, we mortals often go to our cabinets to withdraw the long-procrastinated projects we someday hope to deploy. In that revitalized spirit of invention, people often ask me for my opinion on this or that idea. Often it’s a start-up business idea. Sometimes it’s an investment opportunity. Occasionally it’s a request for feedback on a manuscript. I’m sure you’ve been asked to be a sounding board for similar notions and found yourself in a similarly awkward situation.

“Hey, mind if I bounce something off you?”

I usually respond, “Why do you ask?”

You may ask yourself, Why does he ask the question “Why do you ask?”

My question to your question is born of its own overarching question: Do you really want feedback, or do you just want me to tell you that what you are pitching is wonderful?

Yeah, you’ve been there. It’s a tough place to be, because it’s impossible to be sure what the other person is actually seeking. Is the seeker in need of a boost of self-esteem, where anything critical you offer is likely to triple that person’s therapy bills and end a rebound before it finds form? Is the pitch-person stealth-seeking your financial commitment, where any positive response on your behalf will be followed by a deal memo solicitation at a valuation that would make the Uber people blush? Is the ask truly heartfelt but the work so early and unedited that it could be more harmed than helped by a random response?

It’s not easy to offer an opinion on someone else’s work. Way more can go wrong than can go right.

I tend to find that most people who ask for my opinion don’t really want feedback. They want validation. If you’ve partaken in-depth of the creative process, you know they aren’t the same. Validation is net neutral. Feedback can save your ass.

What do I mean by that?

Validation is a bifurcated switch. If I say the work is good, you’ve heard all you need to hear. If I say I don’t think it’s good, you’ve heard exactly what you didn’t want to hear. The effect is net neutral because either way I have added no value to your project. If I say it’s good, so what? You already thought it was good or you wouldn’t have shown it to me, so I’ve done nothing but increased your standing bias. That takes you nowhere you couldn’t have gone without me. If I say it’s bad, we may no longer be friends, not because I don’t want to be friends but by being honest (even if diplomatic) I have likely hurt your feelings. There isn’t much positive energy that can follow.

If feedback is what you seek and I have any grounded expertise to offer, then perhaps we have a place to go together. That feedback is almost certainly going to be nuanced (“this part makes some sense, that part not so much”) but it has to come your way without consequence to me or expectation of a secondary agenda that involves me. If I want to get involved, I promise I will let you know, but the act of giving you feedback should be reward in itself. That means you have to enter into the feedback discussion with an openness to critique solely because you want your idea to improve, or perhaps decide instead you don’t want to waste any more time on it. There can be no ulterior motives or it’s not feedback, it’s evaluation. I don’t want to evaluate your work. That’s your job, not mine.

As an author, I seek feedback constantly. When I draft something, I always go out for feedback from a broad sample of demographics. When I get good feedback it can be life-changing, because anything that I have missed and you found I can fix. Is it painful? It’s horribly painful. Yet even worse than negative feedback is the silence of no feedback from someone who said they would offer it. That tells me with uncanny certainty that I have failed to connect with their voice. Do I regret asking? Never for a moment.

As much as we dread feedback, we actually should cherish it, because it is the only path from mediocrity to something that matters. The creative process is laden with setbacks, but each time we find a nugget of corrective action, we can improve. That’s what makes the creative process both daunting and healing. It is the reality of success quantified one fix at a time. It’s never fun to edit away what doesn’t work, but that’s how innovation at its finest evolves. There are no shortcuts. If you ask, be sure you want to listen for the answer. It may not be pleasant, like medicine, but hopefully it makes us better one way or another, if it’s the right medicine.

Most people don’t know how to give useful feedback, especially tough feedback that can help us improve our thinking or channel it to more productive ends. Words of validation or invalidation are relatively easy to render and equally useless. Offering consistently constructive feedback is an art. Be careful whom you ask to help you, or you can really go astray.

If you don’t want feedback, don’t ask for it. If you ask for it, don’t be defensive when you get it. If you don’t ask for it, you probably will never reach your potential. If you do embrace it, you can make a small idea become a big idea. A big idea becomes something tangible when we add the necessary recourses and fight past the objections readily available from amateurs. Those who embrace feedback are resilient by nature. There is power in vulnerability. Embrace it, and the sky is the limit.

Do you still want my opinion? I don’t mind if you say no, but if you ask carefully, I’ll try to answer in the same honest spirit.

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Author’s End Note: It’s been hard to write about anything other than Trump the past year. I am still aghast at what has happened, but I am forcing myself back into more diverse subject matter as sanity demands. With my third book now in first draft and about to go into the editing process, I find my love of words never more pronounced, but never more conflicted. It’s hard to write about normal subjects in a world where nothing I once considered normal ever will be again. It is impossible to think about characters more outrageous than the strange ones emerging on the stage of reality. Regardless, I am committed to diversifying my output in continuing this creative journey we began together. I’ll still write about Trump when I must, but I promise you I will pursue more interesting material, if only to prove that he hasn’t won. Stay with me, and I’ll stay with you.

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This article originally appeared on The Good Men Project.