100 years ago, Henry Ford said:

“The competitor to be feared is one who never bothers about you at all but goes on making his own business better all the time.”

To be successful leaders, we need to be that competitor.  We need to keep our eyes and our focus on our business.  To be that competitor, we need to overcome all the distractions that…

1. We ourselves create.
2. Today’s world throws at business leaders.

Distractions We Create Ourselves

We create many distractions ourselves.  For entrepreneurial leaders, a key distraction is having too much going on, having too many business or investment interests.  Additional distractions we may take on include vanity projects designed more to boost our ego than to drive business success: building a new headquarters, writing a book, speaking at high-profile events, becoming a thought leader.

Distractions Thrown at Business Leaders

Countless organizations vie for our time, attention, and money – trade associations, customer groups, unions, charities (local and national), civic groups, boards of directors of other companies, seminars, lobbying groups.  In moderation, participating in a few of these organizations can be productive and helpful to our careers and our businesses.  In excess, they divert our focus away from our primary jobs – running a successful business.

Personal Distractions

Distraction from our personal lives may be unavoidable; but they need to be managed around.  Divorce, sickness, the illness or death of a loved one, financial difficulties, and other personal or family issues in our lives suck our energy and attention away from our business.

How to Manage These Distractions

Successful leaders guard their time and attention jealously and overcome these distractions.

1. Limit outside activities to the essential minimum, generally participate in at most two at any one time.
2. Ensure that there is always slack in our workload and in our lives to allow us to still manage our business well even if a personal distraction upsets our apple cart.
3. Finally, if these distractions appeal to us more than the daily blocking and tackling of the business, then we need to hire a strong number two to run the business while we take on the role of being a Mr. or Mrs. Outside focused on these outside activities while our number two Mr. or Mrs. Inside runs our business.