Attention!

Attention (in the business meeting)!

All of us have happened to travel for several hours to meet someone for just a few minutes. It is part of my job, of course, but sometimes it also happened to me for personal reasons.

A few years ago my mother was diagnosed with an incurable disease.
My perspectives changed immediately. And I wondered what I could give her, in the few days that remained. Thinking about it, simple answer: not material things, but my attention.
So I tried to be as close to her as possible and I want to believe that I have relieved her pain, even if only slightly – for me it would be enough.
And, as is often the case, life gives lessons that are brutal, but also useful at work. What is more precious than attention, than listening?
Since then, I have been even more “attentive to attention”.

Attention at work

There are many forms of attention at work, but the first is “being there”, here and now.
If you are attending the business meeting with attention, “being in the meeting” and nowhere else means really listening and interacting.

How many real emergencies can we have to manage at that meeting hour? And is it justified to take out the mobile phone at each interlocutor pause or, worse, is our clicking on the PC keyboard acceptable when those in front of us try to communicate?

I happened to point out, perhaps in a joking way, the distraction and get evasive answers such as “I’m multitasking” or “sorry, the customer …”.

The fact is that the competition for attention is fierce: devices, notifications, business tools, even social networks fight for every moment of our attention.

And, very often, the new generations are used to managing many stimuli in parallel: have you tried to watch a football match on television with a 20-year-old? Impossible.

At a minimum he has to manage an open chat with his friends and a ranking of some fantasy football that updates in real time.

However, there is no doubt that the world of work is also made up of relationships and these are built through personal contacts and, often, looking into each other’s eyes.
In this regard, I believe I have learned to distinguish the attention signals of my interlocutors and have made considerable progress in my efforts to “be” in the meetings.
It is not easy, but it can be done and, almost always, it is reciprocated: attention stands out and is contagious.
And you, what techniques do you use to resist the temptations of the cell phone?