Most entrepreneurs have tremendous energy, creativity, and most of all many ideas. How do you take that and turn it into profitability and positivity for those around you? The power of focus in those areas and self-awareness is key. Let’s examine each of those traits.

1)    Energy – Is your energy infectious and motivational to all those around you? Be candid with yourself. Positive energy injects optimism into the team – especially in uncertain times. If the leader is down and exhausted – the team will sense that and begin to mirror. On the flip side – too much “nervous” energy or activity or talking for the sake of it can be draining to the team.  Ask yourself – are you bringing the correct level of energy as the situation requires it? Are you using the energy to micromanager or inspire and motivate? Energy needs to be tailored to the situation at hand. A new win – big energy. A loss – tempered energy with a positive outlook of what can be done better for the next opportunity. Use situational and self-awareness to leverage the power of focus to direct your energy at the right time and the right level. They will mirror your energy if it feels right to them.

2)    Ideas – The reason many entrepreneurs are successful is they see something that others can’t. They also tend to think of “possibilities”. They ask, “what else can we do”? Ideas can help create a series of possibilities and opportunities. I recommend not to stop generating ideas – but understand when the ideas can overwhelm the business and the team that supports the execution. Ask yourself – how many ideas are you or your team working on today? Do you and the team have a clear expectation of the outcome? Or is it a constant change – new idea every month, week, day or worse yet – every hour! Are they all over the place and create chaos and confusion or lack direction? Ask yourself and team for feedback -how many of them have come to fruition and ready to be implemented or refined. Set clear targets and the maximum number of unique initiatives the organization can successfully execute on. Most small businesses rely on the same few people for many disparate projects. Use the power of focus to pick a few reasonable projects (most of the time 3 to a max of 5 is reasonable) with clear expectations. Only after projects are completed successfully, add more.

3)    Creativity – I look at creativity as the process of taking the ideas and bringing them to life. Possibly in a unique way to beat the competition. As an entrepreneur – you may have many thoughts on the “how” to do mostly everything. Are you leveraging the creativity and the talent from the rest of the team? Are you outlining the expected outcome and allowing others to use their creativity as well on how to hit the goals? Using the power of focus on the outcome will leverage everyone’s strengths and result in better outcomes.

Think through

I’ve had the privilege to work with and at times coach entrepreneurs. I worked for one that we spent over an hour in his office on a Friday whiteboarding lots of ideas and outcomes. I left that meeting feeling me and my team were not aligned with him, not meeting expectations, and all of us would probably be fired the following week. It bothered me all weekend and had to address my concern first thing Monday. I asked the executive about all the activities on the whiteboard and stated we were not working on most of them and asked if we were all going to be terminated.  He said “no – you and your team are doing great –  I was just brainstorming”!  It helped me understand the power of focus and glad I didn’t share with the team. Also asked him to let me know the next time we were “brainstorming”!  I kept my team focused and was able to leverage the additional creativity from the brainstorming session for future projects. Using the power of focus and helping minimize the chaos that could have resulted had I taken the overwhelming amount of input and began to execute.

Feel free to post comments or email them to me. Small Business, Big Lessons ® – How are you using the power of focus?

 

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About the Author:

Gregory Woloszczuk is an entrepreneur and experienced tech executive that helps small business owners grow their top and bottom line. Gregory believes in straight talk and helping others see things they need to see but may not want to with a focus on taking responsibly for one’s own business. He and his wife, Maureen, started GMW Carolina in 2006.


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