The Importance of Focus

This past week I attended a local Summit event on the topic of childhood obesity where I served as a table conversation facilitator for the breakout sessions. During the many presentations offered by various federal and state officials and recognized experts in the field one disturbing statistic continued to emerge. Despite spending billions of dollars to educate families, schools, healthcare providers, and community agencies about the problem; despite creating dozens of programs to advocate for better eating habits and more exercise; despite research and studies to determine underlying causes; despite all of these noble activities the crisis has gotten progressively worse.

When we face problems, both personal and with our businesses, leaders often fail to focus (to concentrate their attention or effort). This leads to an unorganized attempt to address the issue and only limited success in finding real and lasting solutions. The summit presentations on childhood obesity illustrated this point. Each speaker offered a variety of programs that have been initiated to deal with the epidemic and that is the problem. Wouldn’t it be wise to choose one approach that holds the most promise and have every stakeholder group concentrate its energy to implement that solution?

For example, in Delaware they have adopted a 5-2-1-Almost None healthy lifestyle campaign. It promotes eating five or more servings of fruits and vegetables daily; spending no more than two hours daily in front of a screen (TV, computer, etc.); getting at least one hour of physical activity daily, and drinking almost no sugary beverages (like sodas or energy drinks). The results show real promise and yet there is no effort to take this idea and focus a national campaign around its simple and effective message.

I’m sure there are lots of reasons why this doesn’t occur. One is the ego of leaders who didn’t create the campaign. Another is the political pressure on state and federal officials to spend money and support causes that will get them reelected. One could argue that the message will grow stale in this marketing mad society. Meanwhile the epidemic worsens because leaders lack the courage and discipline to focus on what is working.

Any time real change is attempted, whether on a personal level or in a complex system, the ability to stay focused is one of the keys to success. The vision for change must be stated and repeated on a regular basis. All the leaders or other key stakeholders must be united in their message about the benefits of the change. Every attempt to divert attention must be thwarted if the change is to take root and be fully implemented.

It’s sad to think that a problem as serious as childhood obesity may continue to exist because government, education, faith communities, neighborhoods, and families lack the will to focus on one simple message and the supporting efforts to bring that idea to fruition. As I listened to the presentations and conversations at the summit it is clear we are not yet ready to make that commitment.

You don’t need to make this same mistake. As a leader you can engage your management team, employees, and other stakeholders in process improvement and other change initiatives. When a solution has been identified you can teach everyone to focus like a laser beam during the implementation. By courageously staying the course the organization can move in a new direction. Unlike the disparate efforts to fight obesity you can create a lean and healthy enterprise for years to come.