being a good steward of others’ attention

made w/ midjourney

Crude binary alert: invisibility and delight. If you can’t achieve one, try to achieve the other. 

I’m thinking of this when it comes to the attention of others. That attention is precious. If you’re asking for it, or effectively demanding it from your position of power, treat it as precious. Does this meeting need to exist? If so, let’s make it delightful. If not, let’s delete it. 

I’ve often seen this attitude flower in leaders who have the mindsets of engineers. This takes me by surprise, because I stereotype engineers as cold efficiency-maximizers. Data hounds. “Delight” seems alien to their concerns. 

Yet, these engineer-y leaders give their people a gift. They don’t waste their time. And the best of these leaders, when using that time, make the most of it. Lots gets done and the doing of it is fun, to boot. The routines and requirements are pared to their essence; that essence is joyful.

They are invisible or delightful. They avoid the compromised, wasteful space between.

-eric