I had to learn the hard way that too much focus kills innovation: a few years ago I conducted a week-long training program for a client in Syndey, Australia. My flight was with Singapore Airlines via Singapore and London. Because of the unusual routing, there was a deep discount on First Class – and I splurged on making use of it.

My return flight departed on the evening of the last day of the training. Even though I was exhausted, I couldn’t sleep on the first leg of the flight: my mind was going over the whole week of training again, over the various conversation with the client and the participants. At my first layover in Singapore, I went to the lounge. My flight to London was hours away and it was the last flight out of Singapore. I thought I could doze off for a little bit. And I did…

The next thing I remembered was someone from the lounge staff gently waking me up to tell me that the lounge is not closing and I have to leave. I immediately realized that this was bad news because I knew they don’t close the lounge before the last flight has departed.

I took a look at the time and saw that it was a few minutes after the scheduled departure time of my flight. In the hope that it was still at the gate, I decided to run for it.

As I was running, the thought that kept going through my mind again and again was: “I want to make it to my fantastic First Class seat”.

I made it to the gate and the door was indeed still open. They waited for me. I ran on board, I ran past the greeting flight attendant and headed straight for my seat 2A. My entire focus was still on making it my seat.

Someone was sitting in the seat. Sweating, tired and more than a little annoyed, I asked him to leave. He told me, the flight attendant told him he could sit there, and he’s been sitting here for a while. He has the audacity to ask me if I’d be OK to take his seat?! Now I got angry. My focus still on getting into my seat, and I told him to go to his seat. (Not 100% sure, but I don’t think I said ‘please’ and I’m pretty sure ‘friendly’ wasn’t not the best description of my tone of voice). Now he was annoyed, he collected all his stuff, and left. Yeah me! I could finally sit down into my seat – and thrilled that I made the flight, I went back to sleep within seconds. I didn’t even notice the take-off.

A few hours into the flight, I woke up again. I took a look around and noticed many, many empty seats. In fact, he and I were the only people in First Class. Now it dawned on me what I had done. I felt horrible about my actions and about myself.

My focus on my goal had blinded me to see anything around me. I was unable to step out of that focus. Even though I accomplished my goal, I failed to notice that at some point – when I was on board – the goal didn’t make sense any more. And maybe something else was more important, such as ‘enjoying the ride’ and being polite in the process.

Take the Next Step – and avoid that too much focus kills innovation

 

What’s a goal that you have focused on for a long time? What’s a goal that you’re strongly attached to. What are you blinding out. Try and step back from it for a moment, and determine what’s really important.