Booked: Focus

Daniel Goleman sealed his rep- utation a decade ago with his book Emotional Intelligence and has carved out a niche as an observer of human behaviour, especially in the world of management. This book is about the importance of staying focused when distractions have never been greater.

Training the brain to pay complete attention to the task in hand is crucial to success and the ability to focus well is a greater determiner of that success than IQ, he says. The good news is that brain focus can be strengthened by prac- tice, in the way that a muscle can benefit from a workout.

Directing attention to where it needs to go is a primal task of leadership, he notes. The trick is to be able to shift attention to the right place at the right time, sensing trends and emerging realities. What is important is the entire array of attention bandwidth and dexterity among everyone. Leadership hinges on effectively capturing and directing collective attention.

A well-focused leader can balance an inner focus on the culture and climate with an outer focus on the competitive landscape, he observes.

Goleman’s book ranges across psychology and sociology with a mix of anecdotes, research and personal observations.