FOCUS

Dan Goleman will be well known to many readers for his work initially on emotional intelligence and then on social and ecological intelligence as ways of enhancing one's capacity. Always informed by up-to-date science, he presents his material in a highly readable and practical fashion. Here he tackles the important question of the nature of focus and attention, arguing that it is the hidden driver of excellence operating in three-dimensions: inner as self-awareness, other as sensitivity and outer for navigating in the larger world. The book begins with an anatomy of attention, moving on to self-awareness and reading others before dealing with the larger context, smart practice and the well-focused leader.

Seeing young people absorbed in electronic devices is now a common experience, but it means that they become unaware of what is going on around them with the result that digital engagement can result in social disengagement. Developing rapport, on the other hand, entails mutual focus or attention and demands skills in reading mood and body language. Another telling phrase is 'continuous partial attention' as we try to cope with information overload and an assortment of distractions. Already in the 1970s, Julian Simon warned that information was consuming the attention of its recipients and creating a poverty of attention. Teens in America send and receive more than 100 texts a day and are constantly being distracted, resulting in shorter attention spans, as evidenced by research demonstrating that it is becoming more difficult for these people to read. On the other hand, absorption in a task is essential for the achievement of a state of flow.

There is a useful discussion of bottom-up or less conscious and top-down or more conscious functioning and the enabling conditions for creativity. This requires open awareness after a period of selective attention. Those working with mindfulness will be familiar with bringing back a wandering attention to the present moment. It is fascinating to discover that 'the very brain circuits we need to catch our mind as it wanders are recruited into the neural web that sets the mind adrift in the first place'! This explains why we can become aware when we notice but then cease to be aware until we notice again, which may be some time later. However, we all need periods where the mind is at ease – 'attention restoration.'

Three key features of good leaders are self-awareness, self-regulation and empathy. The first can be partly measured by the extent to which our own self-assessment corresponds with that of others, the second is strongly correlated with academic and career success, while the third is crucial in certain professions, especially the caring ones. Empathy is subdivided into cognitive empathy in reading what other people experience, emotional empathy resonating with or mirroring their experiences, and empathic concern leading to caring action. It turns out that more powerful people tend to be less empathic, especially with subordinates, and it was amusing to read that medical deans have difficulty in spotting those students with empathic concern, perhaps because they lack this quality themselves…

In the wider context, we face a series of complex issues that cannot be resolved by current thinking. Modern people have lost that sensitivity to natural systems that comes instinctively to native people, and this may lead to system blindness and a lack of understanding of underlying causes, especially given that we tend to focus on the immediate and short-term while ignoring longer term trends. This is reinforced by our tendency to tune out distress and discomfort. The chapter on smart practice questions the adequacy of the 10,000 hour road to expertise by reminding readers that the practice has to be smart and focused if expertise is to be achieved. We need to be continuously open to new learning and set goals exceeding our current level of performance. Some researchers are now using video games to develop selective attention and self-regulation, but this can only be at best a partial solution to attention deficit, so programmes involving breathing together can make a real difference to states of mind and hence to learning capacity in a classroom context.

One promising avenue is mindfulness-based emotional intelligence used to retrain our habits of attention. This can be especially useful for leaders and consequently for their organisations, whose collective attention they need to direct. Choosing strategy means guiding attention. It also means having systems awareness and seeing where your competitors are moving in terms of meeting emerging needs. An interesting example is BlackBerry underestimating the importance of touchscreens and being overtaken by iPhones and consequently losing a large market share. Inspiring leaders are those who show a high level of coherence for inner and outer awareness and who can articulate shared values. Here the key is a combination of self-awareness and empathy; pacesetting is not enough and can be demoralising for subordinates. There are some very useful insights for leaders to apply developing these essential skills.

The final chapter discusses the need to lead for the long future, where a systems understanding is vital if mainly lacking in current leaders. Goleman points out that human systems affect the global systems supporting life and that we therefore need to reinvent our economic systems to factor in basic human needs, not simply economic growth. This means focusing on political, economic and environmental systems and their interactions, which only leading thinkers Lester Brown and Al Gore are currently doing. Goleman leaves the last word to the Dalai Lama that we should not give up but offer a positive vision and an optimistic outlook. The basic message is that we need to continue to develop our own full capacities if we expect a corresponding world to emerge, which requires balancing and widening the various focuses of attention explained in this illuminating book.