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By Janet Britcher
Leaders are rightly rewarded for a fixed focus: setting a goal, reaching the goal, forecasting an outcome, staying on budget. Publicly held companies are particularly rewarded for meeting quarterly forecasts. Stock prices are rewarded or penalized based on the accuracy of the forecast. Even a large increase in profits can send a stock tumbling if it is not as large as the forecast.
There are times however when leaders need to develop a flexible focus. Every leadership strength can be overdone depending on the circumstances. A fixed focus can result in a high cost. Let’s look at a very visible news report.
The United Airlines incident this year in which a paying passenger was forcibly removed is an example of a fixed focus which leads to disaster. It was a leadership failure. One way of looking at that fixed focus is that United wanted to get crew members from Chicago to Louisville to service a scheduled flight. Airlines are under pressure to meet on-time expectations, and to fly when scheduled. They are certainly under profit pressure to fill planes as much as possible, which in part accounted for the overbooking of that flight 3411. However, when met with several unusual contingencies, the focus unfortunately remained fixed. Crew members’ need for a seat was made known after passengers had boarded, instead of stopping them at the gate. United’s offers to compensate passengers who were willing to change flights was inexplicably maxed at $800. That compensation resulted in three available seats, but was insufficient to vacate the needed four seats. Airline employees were authorized to pay up to $1,200 but got stuck.
A flexible focus may have revealed several logical choices. Getting closer to the details and options, zooming in the Think lens, crew could have offered more money: the maximum authorized $1,200. They might have lobbied management for a higher authorized amount. Zooming out to some creative options, crew members could have flown on another airline, taken alternative transportation, or inquired about available crew who may have already been there. Logically zooming out they could have even considered the option of cancelling the Louisville flight. It would have been a much more economical option in the long run.
Using the Act, Feel and Witness lenses would have opened up even more options. Leaders, don’t get stuck in a fixed focus.
Zoom Leadership: Change Your Focus Change Your Insights explores the benefits of flexible focus, and offers technique to consider new options.