7 Focus on What Matters

Oracle Team USA was in trouble. Big trouble. With tens of millions of dollars in funding, some of the most skilled sailors in the world, and the greatest sailing technology ever used, they were favored to win the prestigious 2013 America’s Cup.¹

Yet, after nine races and an early penalty, they found themselves regularly following Emirates Team New Zealand across the finish line.² One more victory for the Kiwis, and the oldest international sports trophy would be New Zealand’s. What occurred, however, will likely never be repeated. And the team that achieved it will never be forgotten.

With seemingly insurmountable odds stacked against Team USA, the media pushed for a concession as they interviewed their skipper, Jimmy Spithill. He wouldn’t give it to them. “We feel we’ve got just as good a chance to win this,” Spithill said. “[The race] is all about development. It’s not about how you begin the competition. It’s how you finish the competition.”³

Then he finished with, “It’s not over. It’s a long way from being over.” Spithill remained focused.

Moving a seven-ton, 72-foot-long vessel across the water, with a 13-story sail and foils that want to pull your craft out of the water while going 50 miles per hour is no easy job. Even with the team’s mastery and years of preparation, how could they possibly close such a huge deficit and overcome their evenly matched and equally prepared opponent?

Like all teams that do big things, this yachting crew maintained a focus on what matters most: the human imperative, the specific behavior they needed to succeed as a team. With it, they began to find their way. They took the next race. And the next. And the one after that. By race 19, the deficit that once seemed as big as an ocean was closed. The winner of the next race would take home the trophy.

What had they done to alter the winds of fortune?

It wasn’t better equipment they needed. And it wasn’t different crew members who were required to succeed. The answer came in how the team utilized what they had. “The biggest change we made with the boat is how we sailed the boat,” said Spithill. “The technique we used to trim, sail, and steer the boat came from [members of the team] off the boat,” he said. It wasn’t just a subset of the team, those on the boat that made the difference. To win, it was the entire team working together that proved to be the difference. “All that support . . . we utilized 100 percent,” Spithill reported.⁴

“This ability to come back from such a desperate position,” said general manager Grant Simmer, “and not to flinch, not to point fingers at each other, but to just get stronger, that was incredible.”⁵

Most teams, in all arenas in life and business, come together for the purpose of doing a job. The teams that do big things, however, are as devoted to excellence in their collective efforts as they are in outcomes. Consequently, these teams become stronger as they move from start to finish.

As Simmer said of Oracle, “They came out fighting every day, and getting better and better.”

Focusing on what matters most better enables a team to win. And Oracle Team USA did. As the team crossed the finish line in their come-from-behind win, champagne was served. And the history books added another epic story about the power of teamwork.

After the race, Spithill reinforced what mattered most as he described how the team was able to prevail. “One of our biggest strengths as a team,” he said, “is looking after each other as teammates. It doesn’t matter what sort of adversity we’re facing. Eight to one down, whatever the issue is, we always look after one another. We’re a team. And that’s what got the job done.”⁶

Distracted, Hopelessly Stressed, and Disconnected Teams

Most people know what’s necessary to get the job done, but something specific happens to too many teams that blocks their path to success. It can be depressing to observe.

Consider a team we supported on the East Coast in the food industry. Their big thing was to advance and further implement the lean principles the organization held so dearly. This cross-functional team was diverse in age, gender, and nationalities. As we observed them move through their weekly meeting, it wasn’t difficult to identify why they were delivering what their leader described as “marginal results”—and why they couldn’t achieve big outcomes. The team was in the state we call DSD: distracted, hopelessly stressed, and disconnected. It’s a demoralizing phase a team enters just before they flatline. Here’s what that looks like.

We saw a couple of people sitting at the conference table seemingly anesthetized, their eyes buggy as they stared at the team’s numbers being projected on the screen. Several people had their chins on their chest, looking down at their thumbs, which were getting a workout on smartphones. (Occasionally, a couple of them would quickly glance up and throw a little smile, as if doing so sufficed for communicating, “I respect you!”)

Two others slowly shook their heads as they whispered to one another, their eyes moving around the room as if to pierce any compassion that may have remained among their teammates. One lonely person sat at the corner of the table taking notes and smiling. (About what, we do not know. We smiled back, though.)

Finally, on the bottom of the screen, below the team’s numbers, were the images of four people moving in jerky fashion. Of the four who were remoting in from other locations, one seemed intent on giving her opinion about every number that was read (it was apparent she was defending the outcomes), while the three others seemed bored by the whole affair.

Distracted, hopelessly stressed, and disconnected is the phase a dying team goes through that’s typified by the following traits:

• The inability to collectively sustain a prioritized focus as a team

• Disablement or near paralysis due to overwhelming workloads or circumstances and exceedingly high expectations in performance

• An obvious lack of human connection among team members.

The team’s whole heart wasn’t in it. They weren’t even close to being bigger than the sum of the talents in the room. By staying busy in discussions and endless strings of emails, they were attempting to create the illusion that the team was productive—with little success.

To be certain, teams that have not been equipped to do big things can’t be blamed for falling into this state of DSD. The mind has its tendencies and defense mechanisms. Nearly all of us close ourselves off when our brain circuits can no longer effectively process these and other provocations, such as:

• Competing priorities

• Mixed messages resulting from an endless sea of change

• High volumes of relationships to manage with people we don’t personally know

• Digital gadgets pulverizing our consciousness

• The constant bombardment of media spewing news that repulses us

• Nonstop emails and texts

• Personal and unspoken worries each teammate is likely facing, such as raising teenage children, eldercare, financial troubles, marital discord, illness, substance abuse, and more.

As humans, when we feel distracted by low-value temptations, hopelessly stressed by the requirement to deliver colossal outcomes with few resources, and disconnected from those in our community, we regress. And in big ways: Suddenly, we fall under the illusion that what matters most is our safety and our ability to make money. (That guy named Maslow knew what he was talking about with his hierarchy of needs.)

Far more often than not, what stops a team from doing big things is not that they lack the technical skills or functional experience to get the job done. It is, rather, that the members of the team succumb to being people they don’t want to be. Life is sucked out of the team.

That’s what makes this fifth step in the Do Big Things Framework so powerful. Team members gain the skill of a required and certain focus. And rather than having to change who they are, they become more of the amazing people they already are.

What Matters Most

In the long list of things your team needs to do to succeed, at what level does your team prioritize how team members think and act, particularly with one another? While nearly every team we support says this should be a top priority, rarely does it rise above the other priorities of business without a developmental effort occurring. As we’ve shared, when it comes to teams who achieve big business imperatives, what matters most is the human imperative. It’s about you, your teammates, and, most importantly, who you are together in your efforts to do big things. The strength of the connections among people, where humans are being the best human beings they can be together, is what history shows is required to succeed. This is the core of the human imperative we established in step 1 of the DBT Framework.

Captain Spithill, while being interviewed after the Oracle Team USA victory, said their human imperative was, “Whatever the issue, we always look after one another.” You don’t have to be like Spithill, however, and wait until after you’ve won the contest to determine how you did it. The DBT Framework enables your team to identify what matters most prior to your effort. Deciding who you are going to be is always a more powerful act than assessing who you were.

And a critical reminder (because we’ve seen too many teams miss this): The human imperative is not to be prioritized over the business imperative. Too many companies filled with big-hearted people on well-intentioned teams have gone out of business. No. The human imperative is the prioritized strategy to deliver the business imperative.

Some of the examples of the human imperative, provided in Chapter 3 (step 1) of this book, make clear that this is far more than living our values for the sake of the values or just to score well in performance reviews. This is the business of delivering the business. It’s the business of the heart: being bigger as a team than the challenges we face.

Here’s a quick snapshot of those examples we offered earlier:

• We must practice creative and collaborative teamwork.

• We are all-in early by being committed to our roles and responsibilities as teammates.

• We take the initiative and connect with an enterprise mindset.

Step 4 of the DBT Framework, Focus on What Matters, is how a team sharpens their concentration on the human imperative, thereby enabling them to place better attention on the business imperative. Because they know they’ll be severely tested as they move forward, this is how team members ensure that as a team they don’t become distracted, hopelessly stressed and disconnected. Rather, they will build an immunity to the turmoil, chaos, and unrest around them.

This is making sure that none of us are minimized as human beings as we take on the challenges in front of us—but just the opposite: We realize our greatest personal fulfillment by contributing to a team that becomes stronger in this epic work.

How to Focus on What Matters: The 3 Mind Factors

How do we focus on what matters? Oddly enough, the answer is the same answer to the question, “How do we focus on those things that distract, hopelessly stress, and disconnect us?” That sounds strange, but it’s true. The solution, therefore, is not for us to change our brains; it is to train our brains to do what we want them to do, instead of what our brains want to do.

Imagine someone sitting in front of you holding his hand up. He can move it anywhere he wants. He can wave it and touch and hold objects with it. (Heck, he can slap his face if he wants to.) It’s a tool at his disposal. And because it is, he can use his hand to make a weapon—a fist—to do destructive things. He can also reach his hand toward yours and connect with you by shaking your hand. Or he can use his hand as a tool of service by holding it open and offering assistance. Indeed, the hand is a powerful tool.

The brain is a similar tool in exponentially more powerful ways. Like the hand, your thoughts can be used as a weapon, a tool to partner with others, or a device to offer support. To grasp how this is so requires leveraging three basic facts of the brain and how it focuses.

Figure 7.1 The 3 Mind Factors: Research-Driven Principles to Support Focus

These qualities were first defined by authors and our friends Ed Oakley and Doug Krug, in their groundbreaking book, Enlightened Leadership.¹¹

In this section, we’re building upon and refining their work. To do so, we call this tool the 3 Mind Factors (Figure 7.1).

Within each of us, these mind factors are always turned on. We can’t not use them. It’s how we’re wired as human beings. Therefore, to better develop our immunity to DSD, we don’t have to do something different; instead, we simply have to do something we’re already doing—only better. This wisdom is the core to speeding the transformation of teams, leaders, and entire work cultures.

Mind Factor #1: The Mind Can Only Focus on One Thought at a Time

Try this, right now: Think of two thoughts at the same time. But don’t try very long, because it can’t be done. You can do different things at once, such as walk, chew gum, and have a discussion with another person. But facts are facts: As you move through the day, your mind can only focus on one thought at a time.

For some, this is where things get wild, because we’re all having a lot of thoughts. And by living in an ever faster world with growing digital intrusions, the menu of things our minds can focus on is growing exponentially.

But don’t blame the brain. It’s doing what it’s made to do to keep us alive. Therefore, the claim that “I can’t focus” misses an important point. It’s not that the mind can’t focus. It’s that the mind focuses so well and so quickly. And always on one thought at a time.

The now-classic selective attention test by Simons and Chabris (1999) supports this wisdom.¹² In it, hundreds of unsuspecting people were shown a video and instructed to count how many times three players wearing white shirts passed a basketball among themselves. It’s important to note that there were an additional three people in the group wearing black clothing and passing a basketball. (A chaotic scene, certainly, just like in real life.)

After some time the experiment seems to come to an end, and the observers were asked, “How many passes did you count?” The correct answer was not important.

What’s far more insightful were the responses to the next question Simons and Chabris asked: “Did you see a person dressed in a black gorilla outfit enter into the activity, pound its chest, and then walk off?” Only half reported seeing the gorilla.

As Simons said, “When our attention is focused on one thing, we fail to notice other . . . things around us—including those we might want to see.”¹³ (Because we genuinely care about everyone’s safety, we’ll add: This explains why nobody can safely text and drive at the same time.)

Daniel Kahneman, winner of the Nobel Prize in economics and author of the can’t-put-it-down book Thinking, Fast and Slow, lifts the curtain on what our brain is doing—in our favor or not. Particularly when we are distracted, hopelessly stressed, and disconnected, the part of the brain we use the most focuses so intently that “what you see is all there is.”¹⁴ In other words, anything that occurs around us is either ignored or quickly folded into the framework of what we’re focusing on. Thus, you don’t see the gorilla. You’re focusing on something else.

Emotional intelligence expert Daniel Goleman said it this way in his superb book Focus, “Instead of splitting [our focus], we actually switch rapidly.” We can only have one focus, one thought at a time.¹⁵

Occasionally, multitaskers debate the validity of Mind Factor #1. “But I can sit in a meeting while answering emails easily!” they argue. What’s telling is that as they make this claim, many of their teammates roll their eyes and silently shake their heads. That’s because we all know the truth: We may be able to physically do multiple things at once, but we only hold one concentrated thought at a time. And when we continually switch from one focus to another, it saps the attention needed for full and concentrated engagement.¹⁶

One leader told us: “Multitasking makes us stupid, because nothing gets done well.” Experts who study the human’s ability to concentrate would agree. They estimate that the time it takes to change our focus and then return back to the original focus and task we had is equivalent to the amount of time it takes you to get your favorite beverage in the morning at the coffee shop—when there’s a long line of other customers in front of you. And a really long line at that.¹⁷

So every ding of an incoming text that a teammate then reads on their smartphone takes them away to lines at coffee shops. They leave behind the work they’re doing (say having an important discussion with your direct report? manager? colleague? or completing a project update), and then return their focus many minutes later.

Here’s another way to look at it. Imagine you and your teammates are huddled around a bomb and are working to disarm it by carefully cutting delicate wires tangled in a web. Everyone’s focus is glued on the task. Then, without warning, a teammate’s cell phone rings. Should they answer? (And allow their focus to go get a coffee?) Of course, they likely wouldn’t take their focus from the job at hand; no sane teammate would risk detonating the bomb.

The metaphor is intentionally extreme: When well-intentioned teammates allow outside distractions to jar their focus away from discussions they’re having with others, they subject themselves to severe and real costs.

For starters, who’s got an extra 20 minutes each time one of us receives an interrupting text or phone call to get back to the level of focus we need to truly engage with other teammates? Beyond that, distracted teammates communicate to others, “I don’t care enough about you or your thoughts to stay focused on our discussion.” The result: Future interactions among team members become predictably explosive.

Mind Factor #2: The Mind Cannot Avoid a Don’t

“Caution! DON’T LOOK UP!” You couldn’t miss the enormous yellow and black sign that greeted visitors to this glass bottle manufacturing plant. The entrance to the older facility was located next to the furnace. With temperatures ranging near 3,000°F, globules of molten glass left the furnace to be poured into molds to make bottles and jars. The spectacle is amazing to behold.

But don’t look at it! Glass particles can escape from the top of the furnace and rain down on unsuspecting faces of those who look up. Even when wearing protective goggles, it’s best to keep your face down. Could you do so, though?

It’s likely each of us already knows the plant had to repeatedly deal with offenders. The sign’s unambiguous instructions not only had people looking up, people reportedly twirled their bodies around to get a view of what they were told was forbidden. And no one can blame them for doing so.

Our brains are wired to scan our surroundings for risks. Constantly and often unconsciously, we are searching for threats to our well-being. This wiring, however, comes with an ironic twist: When we identify that which can cause us harm, we focus on it.

To quickly experience this, take this quick test. Read the following four statements and then identify what you are thinking most:

1. We can’t come in over budget.

2. Don’t touch the machinery.

3. When you’re in the meeting with the boss, never talk about “that” subject.

4. Stop sending so many emails.

If you’re like everyone else (and you are because all our brains use the 3 Mind Factors), you’re thinking about over budget, machinery, that subject, and emails. Which means, of course, if these instructions have dire consequences, you’re in big trouble.

The brain can’t resist thinking about the don’t messages it receives. Harvard psychologist Daniel Wegner tells us why we shouldn’t beat ourselves up for thinking about—and quite likely doing—the very things we were instructed not to do. In his paper, How to Think, Say, or Do Precisely the Worst Thing for Any Occasion, Wegner likens this quirk in the brain to slapstick comedy.¹⁸ The very thing we don’t want to think, say, feel, or do, occurs with a frequency triggered by how distracted and stressed we are. (Which, for most teams, is a lot.) Sadly, the results in our efforts to team together aren’t nearly as funny as slapstick.

No one is suggesting teams not use don’t messages. (Pun intended.) Top-performing teams that have high expectations know that it’s an imperative, at times, to be crystal clear about what is not acceptable. (If the team is heading off a cliff, attention needs to be seized immediately.) Used sparingly, the negative words become even more powerful.

Ultimately, teams that do big things are far more productive because they stay focused on what they want instead of what they don’t want. This includes demonstrating an ability to translate what they don’t want to occur into what-they-do-want-to-have-happen messages. As an example, consider a team is approaching a critical project deadline. The temptation may be to utter the mantra, “Don’t miss the deadline!” Because this consumes the brain in unproductive ways, the message is changed to put the brain to greater use, with something like this, “What will we accomplish in this meeting to ensure we meet our deadline?” Given Mind Factor #3, which we’ll cover next, that modification in focus creates entirely different outcomes.

Mind Factor #3: The Mind Goes Toward Its Focus

“Your focus determines your reality,” said the Jedi Knight in the movie Star Wars.¹⁹

This is certain: For any of us to survive, our brain must establish and function within a reality, a belief about how the experiences in our world work together. Without a frame through which to see the world, our image of the world doesn’t have definition or meaning. As a result, we don’t know how to act. To create a frame of the world requires establishing beliefs, what we think is true or not, and right or wrong.

Once such beliefs of how the world works are established, the brain does not like to be wrong. Being wrong means we’re at risk. So the brain figures, “Let’s not make this more difficult than it needs to be.” Left unaffected, this reasoning can set us on a course of living myopic lives.

Since we can only focus on one thought at a time, when the brain receives new information, it checks it against the current beliefs in our frame of reality. “Does this new information fit in my truth?” the brain asks. If no, it has a tendency to quickly yell, “Bull!” and dismiss the new information. Or if the new information validates and reinforces the reality that the brain has established, it breathes a sigh of relief and shouts, “See, I told you! I’m right again.” Then it does a little happy dance and moves on to the next thought.

Psychologists, of course, call this confirmation bias. A nation’s political parties (teams, certainly) rely on this tendency of our brains by constantly pushing stories and information to their respective teams. They must reinforce and further entrench the beliefs of the team. Heaven forbid, if they allow the belief of the opposing party to creep into their reality and alter it in any way, the survival of the team could be threatened.

Have you ever observed two long-time neighbors standing at their shared fence attempting a political debate? With uncomfortable and cordial smiles, they passionately share their opinions and pretend to listen to each other. Then one of them begins thinking, “How can this guy be such an idiot? I have spent my entire life collecting the evidence that my political party is the correct and virtuous party! Can’t he see the obvious data that proves he’s wrong about his party?”

The assumption by this neighbor is correct. The person on the other side of the fence can’t see the same evidence. The human brain can only focus on one thought at a time (remember Mind Factor #1); also, it takes its carrier (you) in the direction of its focus, regularly collecting evidence that’s consistent with the beliefs and reality that have been established. (Your brain thinks it’s working for you; it wants you to resist anything that doesn’t fit in its definition of reality. It wants to stay warm and cozy in a reality of current-state thinking.) As a consequence, both neighbors are right in their beliefs—and blind to the fact that another reality could possibly exist for others.

This scenario is painful for those who believe that the ultimate team eclipses the notion of a particular political party and is instead defined by the entire country. With a broader frame for defining the team the reality shifts, and civil discourse and productive discussions occur because the neighbors now see broader implications and possibilities in their thoughts and actions. Instead of using the 3 Mind Factors to their disadvantage, they apply them for a greater cause.

The example of the political parties is an important one for those teams serious about doing big things. Political parties often use Mind Factor #3 to their party’s advantage. Those observing the effects of this narrower focus can see how it limits the ability of the citizens of a nation to do significant things together.

If the neighbors do not check and assess their focus, they soon quit meeting at the fence. (Most human brains don’t like conflict.) Because the mind goes toward its focus, the neighbors slide from not caring for the ideas of the person on the other side of the fence to not caring about them as people.

For a bit, they quit concerning themselves about their neighbor, ignoring them as they drive into their garage. Then, with that trend in focus unabated, emotions begin to simmer. This means their focus—and beliefs—become even more set in concrete. Because one person’s brain sees their neighbor’s beliefs as a threat to their own reality, judgments are made and words are shared at the dinner table, “Our neighbors are nuts! They’re completely wacky.”

The kids hear the words, and what happens next is both predictable and tragic. Even though they’ve played with the neighbor kids for years, suddenly the kids adopt the reality their parents hold. (Psychologists call it the horns effect: when a negative impression is made that overrules opposite impressions.)

The point here is not whether employees bring national or local politics into their workplaces. What’s at stake is how teams in the business world make missteps in focus on any topic that results in dividing a team, rather than uniting it.

As an example, as authors we’ve seen several organizations painfully agonizing over their inability to create a more diverse and inclusive work environment. Teams function in a fractured state, as good-intentioned teammates hold steadfast in their beliefs—about the customer, the company’s products or services, the direction of the company, and so on—and they doggedly spend their day collecting evidence to support those beliefs.

When these teammates meet another team member (like the neighbors at the fence) who holds different beliefs, perspectives, and experiences, a tragedy occurs: The difference of ideas (which the company desperately needs to succeed) slides to judgments about each other. Sometimes these judgments are based on race, gender, or other demographic differences. And suddenly, really good people with big hearts begin to care less about one another. Trust, collaboration, communication—the behaviors we all know are essential to succeed—disappear.

The implosion all started by allowing the brain to establish a focus, which turned into a belief that the brain collected evidence to reinforce, that then established a reality not shared by others. When the members of a team become small in their thinking, the team can only do small things.

But these teams can get their whole heart back in it. Our experience shows teams committed to the human imperative can do so quickly as long as they’re equipped with a method to better master their focus. With the 3 Mind Factors, team members are better enabled to deliver their imperatives rather than letting their brains deliver something far more dreadful: a team that flatlines.

Collecting Evidence to Prove You Can’t Succeed

They called themselves the Lightbulb Team. They were a bunch of talented individuals from across the organization thrown together to do something big: Innovate and develop the manufacturing technology needed tomorrow so they could get their product to the customer far faster and without spending all the company’s revenues to do so. Given how they were connecting with one another or, more specifically, how they weren’t, they could have called themselves something far less honorable.

“I don’t get it,” one of the team members told us. “Everyone on this team was either recruited or begged to be on it. I mean, we’ve got bright people here. You’d think that figuring this out wouldn’t be so difficult.”

As we listened to the members of the team in one-on-one interviews, it was easy to hear how they were using the 3 Mind Factors to their disadvantage and why their whole heart wasn’t in it.

A project manager said, “The problem is that no one is following our established process.”

The lead engineer told us, “Nothing’s going to change until leadership changes.” (We noted a tone of resignation, though curiously not laced with pain.)

And the HR lead reported, “I’m trying to talk corporate into giving me four hours to take everyone through our high-performing teams training program. We’ve got to get back to understanding our reason for being, our charter.”

There were other interviews we conducted, of course, yet this sample makes the painful point. The Lightbulb Team was using their focus to dim their potential. They were collecting evidence that proved they couldn’t succeed as a team.

It’s one of the greatest tragedies in business (if not life). Most people will say they want teammates around them with hearts activated and brains turned on, but then too many will focus on everything wrong or inadequate about these same people. Consequently, because what they see is all there is, they shut down and destroy the very attributes they long to see and know the team needs to succeed.

None of us are gods, yet our focus creates the reality we must live with. If team members are going to routinely collect evidence on what they don’t like, care about, or respect in their teammates, why not quit as a team now? Why prolong the suffering and inevitable decline to flatlining as a team?

These are ugly, backward-focused words, we know. Yet, the act of creating destructive beliefs about other people is even uglier. It’s called the Doofus Principle. And teams that do big things will have nothing to do with it.

The Doofus Principle

With apologies to Merriam-Webster, note the definition shared in Figure 7.2.

Teams that can only do small things get stuck in a toxic culture where people are Doofusing themselves and others. It sounds like this: “All everyone in finance is ever worried about is money. They’ve got no heart.” Or, “Don’t invite her to the meeting. Her personality style always derails us.” Or, “This company will never be able to innovate.”

Figure 7.2 Definition of Doofus

Teams that intend to elevate their performance must answer this question: Because we will always find the evidence to support any belief we choose about ourselves, our teammates, or other teams, are we choosing the beliefs that are useful to what we need to do to succeed? Or are we merely focusing on and collecting evidence of what we can prove is true? (Because the mind is wired to go toward its focus, it can prove that nearly anything is true.) If we answer yes to the second question, then we must address this: Why would we deliberately choose to believe something about ourselves or others that is destructive?

The act of Doofusing will extract the heart from any team. Those who understand this wisdom, as they join a team, don’t hope they get teamed with great people. Instead, they make the people they’re teamed with great. They are purposeful in establishing beliefs about themselves and each other that draw them closer and drive the meaningful connections the team will need to succeed. A richness in diverse and inclusive thinking and actions occurs as team members bring the best out of everyone they interact with.

Now, the team can do bigger things in epic fashion.

How to End Doofusing

The experts who study the human mind are clear about this. Where each of us places our focus can be easily concentrated into three domains:

1. An inward focus

2. A focus on others

3. A focus beyond others, or on the outer domain²⁰

You deserve a raise in pay if you recognize these distinct areas of focus. (Okay, we can’t authorize that. Sorry.) These points of focus align perfectly with the 3 DBT Decisions. Today’s business demands that your team be agile in moving between these three domains of focus. The ability to do so is the essence of a team that can adapt to new and unpredictable circumstances. The Contributor, Activator, and Connector Decisions each prove to be an effective method for developing this type of focus agility. Specifically, here’s what that looks like.

To make the Contributor Decision, to bring your best to every situation, requires that you focus inwardly first. As you do, your choice to focus on what you do well versus a consistent focus on what you don’t do well, will determine your ability to contribute fully.

Because you go toward your focus (Mind Factor #3), any self-chatter such as “I can’t speak well in meetings,” or “I can never get ahead,” only means you’ll find more evidence that diminishes your confidence, if not your self-worth.

To put an end to the self-Doofusing, take this challenge: Provide yourself with the opposite type of feedback you’ve been giving yourself. Specifically, if you’re serious about being more consistently at your best, focus on and celebrate those moments when you are demonstrating the behaviors you want to model with greater consistency. Even more than positive affirmations, this focus means you will only find more evidence that you are capable. With growing confidence, you form a healthier and more productive reality. Now, you can contribute even more.

Succeeding in making the Activator Decision, to bring the best out of others in your interactions with them necessitates the need to shift your focus from self to others. Just as giving yourself affirmative feedback works to build the thinking necessary to contribute more, so does giving positive feedback to others bring out their best. Despite the fact that this type of feedback is well documented to transform behaviors, it’s woefully underused in most workplaces. Therefore, consider these examples so you can be an even greater model:

• If you have a teammate who others are Doofusing by thinking, “She never does quality work,” then you can seek those moments when she does deliver quality and tell her so: “Your quality work on this allowed us to hit the deadline. Thank you.”

• If people are Doofusing the team by saying, “We never trust each other around here,” you can change that by providing feedback when you see trust in action. For example, “I really appreciate how we trusted each other to deliver on our roles with this project. It allowed us to be far more efficient.”

We all go toward our focus; when teammates are guided to concentrate on the important difference they’re making, they are far more likely to make a greater difference.

To prevail in delivering on the Connector Decision, to partner across the business and deliver shared objectives, demands an outer focus beyond the team. And, it’s entirely natural: When you don’t have a relationship with others, the mind is quick to skew to negative thinking. (As the wise have said: Humans fear what we don’t understand.) However, teams that do big things refuse to lower or dishonor themselves by Doofusing other teams. Rather than inhibiting their own progress by focusing on the lack of relationships, they instead focus on what matters: creating the evidence that supports the beliefs necessary to accelerate the trust needed between teams.

We encourage you to do what the best teams do when they connect across the business: Give other teams sincere, affirming feedback. It works well for many reasons, including: (1) Entire teams follow a focus (not just a person), and (2) When done genuinely, it builds affinity and relationships quickly. Here are some examples.

• “We know this was our first meeting, yet we just want to acknowledge both teams for being so transparent. That will be a key for us moving forward.”

• “Real quick—I know everyone has to run to their next meeting, yet before you go I just wanted to thank you for trusting our team. We just started this work together, and it’s apparent by the comments that were made that we believe each team is fully capable.”

Here’s what the Lightbulb Team did to succeed: Once they were equipped with the DBT Decisions, and the 3 Mind Factors necessary to effectively make those decisions, they chose to end the Doofusing. Instead, they focused on what matters most: strong connections among teammates.

The project manager was challenged on her assumption that no one followed established processes. When we provided her with evidence that while the workers in the field hadn’t been perfect, they had indeed hit several milestones, she was on her way to an insight: Her focus on failures meant she’d only find more failures, and drive a wedge between herself and others. What would keep wedges out of relationships? She knew the answer: focusing more on where they are following processes rather than where they’re not. Then, she’ll be more effective when she addresses the deficiencies.

We also challenged the lead engineer on her statement that nothing would change until leadership changed. It’s true, we told her. The higher someone goes in an organization, the less self-aware they are likely to become.²¹ As well, their ability to demonstrate empathy by reading emotions through facial cues often dwindles.²² Despite all that, we asked her: “Was it possible the leaders she was criticizing might not be aware of the outcomes they were creating?”

“Not aware?” she asked. “How could they not be aware? It’s flagrant and abusive.”

Perhaps, we replied. Then we asked her to consider as well that while leaders may lose their ability to be empathetic, so is there a decline in reverse empathy: the employees’ ability to be empathetic of top leadership. When we asked her how she engaged with and acted around senior leadership, she confessed that she avoided them.

“If this is so,” we told her, “and given the research, what would it mean if they were unaware of the effect their actions were having on you, but they were aware that you were avoiding them?”

That question transformed thinking and actions for her. At that moment she made a commitment to control what she could control, starting with her thinking and behaviors.

The HR lead seemed perplexed by our question: Why did the team need their directive or charter reinforced through another high-performance training? His answer, in so many words: They’re not collaborating, because they’re not aligned on what’s most important.

We agreed with his observations regarding the lack of collaboration; however, based on our experience, we came to a different conclusion as to the cause. Consider, we said to him, that the focus he sensed the team lacked wasn’t related to what they had to achieve, but was a symptom of how they were seeing and interacting with one another.

To pull people from across a business, who have little or no experience with one another, and expect them to start their work at a level of trust necessary for effective collaboration, has as much chance for success as mixing oil and water. It’s difficult, given everything we know about how the brain is wired to focus. A leader can spend weeks covering the details of the charter and teaching about collaboration, but until the new teammates are equipped with the ability to focus on the behaviors of others in a way that creates a healthy, shared reality, little productivity will occur.

Figure 7.3 Team Purpose Hierarchy Pyramid Showing Common Beliefs of Teams

To assist, we provided the pyramid (Figure 7.3) to the HR lead, and then asked him: When you consider the beliefs team members have of one another, at what level do they function?

His answer came quickly: “We all see each other as competitors.” When we asked him why, his response didn’t surprise us, because it’s a reality on too many underperforming, cross-functional teams.

“They’re excited about building new technology,” he said. “But each of them also wants to make sure that whatever they create is of the greatest benefit and lowest risk to their respective functions. This new technology will likely require a lot of resources, and we’re always competing against each other for those. As a result, our debates are less about innovating than they are negotiating.”

We have a lot of empathy for what the members of teams like this have to endure because they’re being asked to overcome incredible, silent forces. They work on the cross-functional team, but they operate and belong to seemingly separate universes. Our assessment work revealed that when the Lightbulb Team went back to their functions, there was serious Doofusing occurring. They were surrounded by other teammates who held beliefs such as, “Everyone from engineering is cold-hearted.” “All those project managers are slave drivers.” And, “Those people in HR are (fill in the blank).” Such conditions make it nearly irrational to expect productive outcomes.

We’ve seen it hundreds of times: When teams move beyond nametags and ice-breakers as the method to create identities for teammates, they can create the necessary identity as a team to do big things. That’s what the Lightbulb Team was finally able to do. By being equipped to focus on what matters most—the human imperative—their results improved just as you would expect them to: quickly.

The moment teammates realize that collectively they are far bigger than the objective they must accomplish, a team prepares itself to go further than they’ve ever gone before. To be bigger as humans begins with what we all want to do anyway: understand and honor the roles and lives our teammates lead and live.

Perhaps it is Daniel Goleman who summarizes this wisdom best: “The more you care about someone, the more attention you pay. And the more attention you pay, the more you care.”²³

Now we realize our potential not just as a businessperson, but where it matters most—as a human being.

We Need Each Other

Oh sure, some brave or foolhardy individuals had attempted to float the Green and Colorado Rivers prior to Powell’s team doing so in 1869. Today, on rocks next to the river, there are carvings of initials of daring trappers and prospectors who explored the area.

Included in the lore is the story of James White. Found by rescuers in late 1867, floating out of the Grand Canyon, he was naked, disoriented, and near death. Chased by Indians, he had made a simple raft and launched himself into the river. For a while, lore had it that he floated through the entire Grand Canyon. But the story was eventually dismissed. Nearly all the legends about these early explorers include calamity, reinforcing the idea that the canyons of these rivers were unpassable.²⁴

There is no doubt: Powell’s men had their share of conflict and in some cases even despised each other. Stuck with the same people under severe circumstances has this effect on most of us. Many river runners going through the Grand Canyon today know of the infamous Day 10. It’s the day when the members of a party, having been cramped in impossible proximity together in small boats and tents, often snap emotionally. (It doesn’t have to be on the tenth day of the trip; it could be days sooner or later. Veterans of the river simply know the tension eventually becomes too much.)

Some river runners will go the remainder of the trip, roughly 15 to 20 more days, nearly oblivious to the beauty and excitement around them. Their focus is consumed with what they don’t like or respect (in some cases, hate) about those in their party. For those who have a natural mastery of the 3 Mind Factors, they shift their focus and overcome the conflict. Their reward: the trip of a lifetime.

Powell’s team, according to his journals, had plenty of Day-10 moments.²⁵ They, however, unlike the river runners today, didn’t have the choice to not work together the rest of the journey. That would have meant certain death. They needed each other.

The members of your team spend a lot of time together. How do they come into the experience? Are teammates merely to be tolerated to meet an end? Or do they seize the opportunity for the trip of a lifetime?

We each need to do big things. What’s more, we need each other to discover who we truly are. And that’s what matters most.