Hyper Focus

Ironically, a gift that many ADD learners have is the ability to hyper focus. Da Vinci was perhaps the original ADD poster child, although back then they called it being a Renaissance man. The creator of modern medical illustration and accomplished artist, military engineer, aeronautical theorist, mathematician, writer, scientist and musician was obviously all over the career road map. When he first started painting commissioned art in a Florence workshop he would often come in and dabble for 20 minutes then leave for the day. The cycle would repeat itself until he would suddenly paint for days straight and deliver great work. He lamented sorrowfully on his death bed of all the work he left undone, but I’m not alone in thinking the Mona Lisa, the Last Supper and the rest of the body of work is still pretty highly regarded!

Sometimes I need to haul learning back to my cave and devour it there. That is when I am most likely to get into a zone where I can hyper focus. I don’t do well with lecture. I have had the privilege of seeing PP presentations from many top global improvement leaders spanning my eight year tenure plus in the LSS CPI (Lean Six Sigma and Continuous Process Improvement) market arena. And fortunately much of what they shared stuck. I was interested in it, and it is now unconditional in the way I think and work. Understanding Lean thinking and how it can impact the way I learn has made me substantially more productive. However, my paths to learning remain decidedly non-mainstream.

If we mapped what was really going on in my head during most of these LSS Conference sessions I just referenced, the thought sequence would likely resemble something like this:

1. Nice chart graphic, but too many bullets…where’s the headline?
2. Is that vent blowing her hair? What’s going on with that?
3. Why do they always read the slides? I can read the slides, just show more pictures or graphs and talk about them.
4. Wow, don’t do that. Don’t comb over…embrace you baldness.
5. Did I call the project lead from ABC company back?
6. Is that plant over there real or silk?
7. I would use a different name for the bone on that C&E matrix.
8. Wonder what’s for lunch? I’m thinking poached salmon. Easy to cook 200 servings of poached salmon, plus if it dries out a bit before it’s served that can be good. I don’t really like it when it’s just barely poached. Plus yesterday was chicken day.
9. Oh you’re kidding. You don’t really have 55 slides for a 40 minute presentation do you?
10. I need to put new music on my SD chip.

Get the point? A room with 25 people and a PP driven lecture is not always the best way for everyone to learn. Studying how people learn best can also lead to significant gains. OK, that’s another article too, but we must first ask ourselves a different question:

Is it more effective to force learners to adapt to the delivery method we've put forward, or to give them options that allow them to travel down stretches of the learning path themselves utilizing solutions that work best for them, at times and places that they choose?