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Shelter Chieza Change Management
No-one is inertly born with the power of attention. It is a skill that needs to be tapped and developed. However, human beings constantly find it difficult to keep the levels of attention at any one moment.

A person achieves a certain level of attention because they have purposed to give attention to something. Everything a human being does can be done better, more efficiently, and even faster. In time, as your attention gets stronger, thoughts will lose their power to distract you, and you will find that you can absorb yourself in whatever you do. This will increase your efficiency, and make you enjoy whatever you do.

Throughout my business journey, I have observed that if you bring your personal or business accounts fully and accurately up to date, money will not be as hard to manage. Most businesses have been known to crumble not because of low volumes of business but financial indiscipline and mismanagement. And so it’s not too drastic if owners of the company are put on the payroll, it helps to balance your cash flows.

I have also observed that people too respond to attention. Nearly every normal being wants to be attended to and be the object of greater attention and affection from others. Interestingly, when you give deserving people that extra consideration, they can exceed your expectations and rise above all setbacks before your eyes.

My former hockey coach noticed that whenever he gave a little added attention and encouragement to a not-so-brilliant player, they would become more brightened, became more enthusiastic about the skill, and gave the instructor a perfect dribble at the end of the day.

When we give greater attention to others, they come alive and behave in a way that attracts more attention, but extraordinary conditions can suddenly break out and we see records being broken. This is why I am not a fan of open criticism. On some individuals it tends to bring them down and bury them in pits and holes that you can never be able to retrieve them. Yes, they may be the worst performing department but no one wants to be labelled the “Worst performing department of the year”.

I believe that in life everything in life responds positively to attention. People, objects, your inventory, and money are but a few examples.

The best way to give attention to money is to account for it very accurately and promptly. Most individuals that have no idea of how much they use every month may not be the most effective in financial discipline. Its true, keeping accurate and up-to-date accounts of money is a powerful mechanism for attracting more of it from life.

In my previous job is used to manage a packing unit. The unit employed 15workers. It’s never easy to supervise individuals that have a minimum level of education. The packers had to seal cartons and boxes with adhesive tapes, and then strap them with thick stretch ropes.

These operations were done manually by the workers. The first days I noticed that there was no uniformity in their work, so I later made a template for them to follow for perfection. After some time, the workers developed the skill and experience to do neat packing without using the template. Soon after, they were very happy when they received compliments about their packing from our distributors.

This has had the effect of energising the company so much that not only are the workers constantly happy and proud, but now the machine we were about to write off has suddenly started yielding results and is nearly doubling output of its rated capacity.

Attention has a spiralling effect. Did you know that the market is responsive to the effort you input to please them? With no publicity or advertising effort your sales can increase because you have perfected your in-house issues. When you give others attention, not only are practical results generated, but you can awake a dead business, idea.

Try doing a little exercise to increase your attention span. When reading a book, focus your eyes and mind on the words, and do not think of anything not connected with what you are reading. Try to ignore outside noises and any irrelevant thoughts. While working, focus your mind on what you are doing, as if it is the only important thing in the world, even if you do not like your job.

If this is something that you can do, why not consider who in your life deserves more of your attention. Once you start making that determination, shower that person or group of individuals with all you can give. After all it is the Christmas season for giving.

When you do, not only will they come alive; not only will they deeply appreciate your efforts; but a new relationship and success may be driving in your direction.

Till next week, I wish an enjoyable rest to those taking a break from work. Enjoy it, you deserve it!Shelter Chieza is a Management Consultant. She holds over a decade of Management Experience .She can be contacted at [email protected]