Michael Phelps is like a CEO.
Phelps is CEO-like in his ability to focus only on the task at hand, even when that task is very hard and is wedged between other very hard tasks.
Consider these quotes from ESPN’s coverage of Phelps’s quest to make Olympic history:
- In Athens, [Phelps's coach Bob] Bowman didn’t sleep the night before the 100 butterfly, worried the frenzy had caught up with his star. It seems the media onslaught, the wait for the shuttle and a random drug test forced him off his schedule. But Phelps won anyway, even after trailing with 25 meters left. Others become distracted when their routines are thrown off. Concentration blown, they race opponents or fear or expectations. Phelps’ greatest gift is his ability to compartmentalize, to focus on what he’s doing and race only himself. (AND AFTER THAT, MR. PHELPS WILL LEAP A TALL BUILDING IN A SINGLE BOUND)
- But the only way you get to eight is to start with one, and that’s part of the trick here. Phelps must break these Games down into 17 individual swims (counting preliminaries and semifinals) and focus on those instead of the great eight. While everyone around him is talking big picture, he must compartmentalize. “He really does a wonderful job at taking one day at a time and attacking whatever’s in front of him for that day,” U.S. national team coach Mark Schubert said. (Handicapping Phelps’ run at Olympic glory)
For her book Organized for Success, productivity expert Stephanie Winston followed CEOs and other top executives through their overstuffed days to find out how they achieve so much. One of her key findings is that these heavy hitters don’t multitask, but rather “spotlight”-task.
In other words, they develop the ability to focus their full attention and all of their skills only on the task at hand. If they have ten minutes to talk to a project leader, they extract maximum value out of that ten minutes. And over time, they guard their time to make sure that their attention is channeled disproportionately to the most important things on their agendas.
That sounds a lot like Phelps, who says that his days are basically “eat, sleep, swim.” If you’re going to aim as high as Phelps — or a top CEO — does, that sounds like a pretty good model.
How well do you compartmentalize your work?
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Compartmentalize my work? Evidently I multitask and don’t spotlight-task! But now that I know the term, maybe I can put it to use. Starting…now!
Spotlight-tasking is only one of the many reasons I wish I were like Michael Phelps :-) I do tend to shift from task to task too quickly and without finishing the first one – I think a lot of it has to do with working for different people/organizations and wanting to please everyone all at once. I’m thinking I need to schedule each task into a specific time-slot, maybe that’ll make me feel less harried……
Thanks for the comments, Miz Liz and Kate.
The key is that, any appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, we DON’T achieve more by multitasking, but by focusing. The best way to keep ten clients happy is to delight the first one first, then the second one, and so on.
OF COURSE interruptions will come up, but (1) we can usually control them to some degree, and (2) we don’t have to contribute to them ourselves.
I’m guessing that people would say, “Yeah, but Phelps doesn’t have the same sort of responsibilities that I have. I have to answer to my boss, my coworkers, the other departments in the company….”
But Phelps probably has just as many competing commitments that are vitally important. How does he say no to Visa or Speedo, two sponsors that pay him a fat pile of money? How does he say no to the media, upon whom he depends for his future marketability? How does he say no to his coach? Or his mother?
Your post reminds me that it’s so easy for us to justify our “unique” situations, and give ourselves license to avoid compartmentalization of our work and our responsibilities. But whether you’re a CEO, a star athlete, or a worker bee, there’s only one route to success: focus.
Amen, Dan.
When people make the kind of aversive argument you’re talking about, I also turn it around: maybe Phelps doesn’t have to sit through pointless meeting, deal with corporate bureaucracy, etc. BECAUSE he focuses so well on his Main Thing.
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[...] case of the “decision-making muscle,” we can build up our ability to focus over time. As I’ve mentioned before, Winston notes the ability of CEOs to “spotlight-task” rather than multitask: they give [...]