119
» Headphones: Allow employees to wear headphones to block out distractions.
» Let employees work from home one or two days a week, reporting at the end of such days what they got done. Allow them to work without the distractions of the office, and see what happens.
» Shut down the Internet for a couple hours a day. Disconnecting might seem alarming, but it will allow people to focus and get a lot done. If they know it?ll happen at a certain time each day, they?ll get the tasks done that require the Internet before that time, and prepare for the time of disconnection.
However you do it, creating an environment of focus rather than distraction and busywork will breathe new life into your organization.
Transforming Culture: The next question becomes how you go from the current office culture and environment to one of focus. This isn?t easy ?whether you don?t have completely control over the company (you?re a mid-or low-level manager) or you are in charge but must deal with inertia and ingrained habits.
Some ideas:
1. Give out a copy of this book. You can freely distribute the free version of this book, which is uncopyrighted, or buy the digital package once and distribute it electronically to the rest of your organization, or buy multiple copies of the print book to hand out.
It?s a great place to start, to get everyone on the same page.
2. Talk about it. Simply start a conversation, with your colleagues, bosses, team members. Talk about the problems of distractions and finding focus, and see what ideas emerge.
3. Institute small changes. There?s no need to drastically overhaul culture overnight. Start small, with a simple but powerful change, 120
such as: instituting a no email, no meetings, no distractions period for one hour at the start of every day.
4. Keep pushing for small changes: reducing the number of meetings, having no-email or no-Internet hours during the day, holding retreats where people work in a monk-like, distraction-free, quiet environment, encouraging people to switch off phones and use headphones during parts of their day, suggesting that people set two or three times a day when they check email and that they don?t check email at other times, etc.
Over time, things can change, but be patient, be encouraging, be positive.
And most of all, lead by example.
_______________
121
