Overcoming Roadblocks with Attention Agility

My wife and I have been binging past seasons of “The Amazing Race.” We’ve been making mental notes of the exotic race locations for imagined future vacations. We also enjoy passing judgment on the way the two-person teams bark commands at each other while driving to their next clue. From our comfortable seats in the living room, we think, “Why not just relax and take in the breathtaking scenery?” Thankfully, we’ve never had microphones and cameras pointed at us while we discuss where to park at the mall.

I’m always impressed when a leg of the race requires teams to navigate in unfamiliar territory. They must drive under pressure, decipher road signs in languages they don’t understand, and arrive on time to avoid high-stakes consequences. Sometimes, they struggle with a manual transmission car. They’re forbidden from using modern GPS technology, creating stressful, complex, and uncertain conditions.

Lately, I’ve become interested in how our attention works and what it means for our ability to deal with an increasingly complex and uncertain world. When driving under familiar and predictable conditions, like a trip to the mall, we have attentional resources to spare. We can listen to music, sip coffee, and have a mature, collaborative conversation about where to park.

However, driving under hazardous conditions through unfamiliar territory requires us to use our attention differently. We become alert to our environment. Subtle features of the landscape take on greater significance. We may need information from people we don’t typically interact with. It sounds like I’m describing what it feels like to lead in today’s business environment.

We know what it’s like to switch the way we use our attention when driving. Changing conditions have an immediate impact. We’ve learned that misapplying our attention represents a clear and present danger. When organizational leaders get in the driver’s seat, the risks of misapplying their attention are less obvious, but no less perilous. We can’t navigate our organizations and teams through uncertain conditions with our status quo driving habits.

Attention Agility

Attention agility is the capacity to shift one’s focus and perspective quickly and easily in response to the dynamic demands of complex and uncertain conditions.

Developing the skill of attention agility allows you to deliberately and strategically allocate attentional resources to various aspects of a problem or scenario. You can recognize and prioritize key insights, adapt your thinking strategies on the fly, and generate holistic, multifaceted solutions. People skilled at attention agility notice evolving circumstances and consider a broad range of perspectives and possibilities.

Attention agility is the capacity to shift one’s focus and perspective quickly and easily in response to the dynamic demands of complex and uncertain conditions.

Attention agility is akin to mindfulness. It’s simultaneously sophisticated and simple. Like mindfulness, attention agility is less about doing something new and more about heightened awareness and managing distraction. A driver applies attention agility when switching from autopilot to vigilance as the road conditions change. A leader applies attention agility when challenging assumptions, watching trends, and taking in diverse stakeholder perspectives.

SCAN

In 1938, Orson Welles and his troupe of radio actors broadcast a story about a Martian invasion of Earth. The broadcast, known as ‘The War of the Worlds,’ was written and acted to sound like an emergency interruption of regular programming. Historical accounts of the broadcast differ on how many people recognized it as a hoax and how many panicked. My father heard the broadcast and told me that he simply checked to see if other stations were reporting news of an alien invasion. When he discovered that it was only being reported by the Columbia Broadcasting System, he sat back and enjoyed the program.

You can think of attention agility as the simple act of switching radio stations. Just as we have our favorite stations (or streaming channels), we also have our preferred types of information. When facing uncertain or complex situations, we tune in to the channels that provide information we trust, information that helps us feel in control. If we only attend to one kind of information, we miss the whole story. We don’t uncover new insights. We overlook risks and opportunities. We can get stuck.

We developed a framework called SCAN (Structures, Context, Assumptions, Needs) to help people pay attention to a broad spectrum of information so they notice the important, hidden influences that may be keeping them stuck. The SCAN framework facilitates the process of switching attention, especially when things get stressful, complex, and uncertain. Check out this explainer video to learn about SCAN. If you’re unaware that other channels of information exist, you won’t turn the dial. If you want to develop your attention agility, diversify your information sources. Learn to change the channel.

The teams that win “The Amazing Race” are not necessarily the most physically fit or the most worldly. Winning teams are able to shift their focus and perspectives more quickly and easily than team that get stuck and fall behind. When you watch the teams get stuck, you can tell that they’re only thinking about their challenge one way. When they switch the way they pay attention, they get unstuck.

Amazing Race teams don’t have the luxury of viewing themselves the way my wife and I watch them. But what if they did? What if a team feeling stuck could shift their perspective, even for a moment, from participant to spectator? What would they notice? What if a leadership team feeling stuck could shift their perspective? The next time my wife and I argue about finding a parking space, I’ll imagine we’re on camera. I think it might alter, at least for the moment, my preoccupation with being right.