The Vitality Imperative. Mickey Connolly

another is the purity of your attention.

      —Richard Moss

       We cannot change what we are not aware of, and once we are aware, we cannot help but change.

      —Sheryl Sandberg, COO Facebook

      In 1986, a 14-year-old violinist named Midori Goto, known simply by her first name, performed Leonard Bernstein’s Serenade in her debut with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at the Tanglewood music festival. As Bernstein himself conducted this challenging piece, the E string on Midori’s violin snapped. She turned gracefully to the concertmaster, took his violin, and resumed her play. Moments later, the same string snapped on the replacement violin, and again she turned to the concertmaster, took yet another violin, and returned seamlessly to the performance.

      In spite of the disruptions, The New York Times’ John Rockwell termed Midori’s performance “near perfect.” When the piece ended, amid wild cheers and applause, Bernstein knelt and kissed her hand in honor of her poise and musicianship. Her capacity to be present amid the mayhem was remarkable. We think every one of us can learn to be as poised as Midori through the power of presence.

       How Does Presence Produce “More with Less”?

      Presence is as crucial to vitality as oxygen is to fire.

      Presence dictates how much of our mental, emotional, and physical talents are available to us at a given moment. Many leaders tell us about precious days when they were especially perceptive and effective, operating at the top of their talents. If you want to spend a greater percentage of life experiencing those kinds of days, then get very interested in presence.

      By presence we do not mean charisma; we mean awareness. How well leaders are connected to a given moment governs their impact per unit of time, money, and stress. More fully, presence is the ability to be aware intellectually, emotionally, and physically without prejudice—that is, any preconception that pollutes our awareness. There are big stakes here because both insight and action are correlated to awareness. If you miss the moment, you’ll miss the signals crucial to your success. The quality of your future is directly correlated with the quality of your presence.

      Practicing presence is not common. Common practices and wise ones, however, can be different, and quite often are. In our conversations with people around the world, we hear that there is “not enough time” for such new pursuits. Typical solutions to the not-enough-time dilemma often make things worse. We hurry, multitask, and give shallow attention to each moment as we rush toward the next one. Meeting agendas feature many subjects, but few things are resolved.

      The outcome? Maximum effort and minimum impact. As a result, impatience increases and effectiveness declines, leaving even more to be done.

      We think it is time for the victory of presence over this irrational cycle of waste.

      The victory of presence has major benefits to community, contribution, and choice:

       • Increased trust

       • Better judgment and decision making

       • Noticing “weak signals” that others miss

       • Greater safety, fewer injuries

       • Greater peace of mind and enjoyment of work

      If you care about those benefits, then there is good news: presence is improvable.

      A leader’s ability to make a meaningful difference rises and falls with the quality of presence. In this chapter, we will cover the principles of presence, introduce some basic practices to develop presence, and show you how to recover presence when it is lost. Let’s investigate.

Presence Principle #1: Presence is rational, emotional, and physical

      All humans think, feel, and act. Noticing that triad of human experience is essential to presence.

      Daniel Goleman, in Vital Lies, Simple Truths, wrote, “The range of what we think and do is limited by what we fail to notice.” If you want to strengthen presence, start by noticing thoughts, emotions, and body movement. Notice your own experience, and notice others’. This deceptively simple practice of awareness improves insight and action, while lack of awareness assures that you are not fully connected to yourself or to others—dangerous territory for a leader.

      We sponsor an executive development program called “Credibility, Influence, and Impact.” Leaders from organizations around the world participate, and most report that the work on presence is one of the most valuable parts of the experience. Here is what two of them have to say.

      Roger Henderson was a successful senior engineering manager at Ball Aerospace when his career took a turn. Roger’s interest in the design principles underlying human performance led him to become a director of talent development and a valued coach for senior executives at Ball. He says:

      I now see the mental, emotional, and physical components of presence as fundamental to personnel development. These three pinpoint precise aspects of the human experience and allow for focused attention. Leaving even one of these areas unattended hampers growth. The development process accelerates simply by having people go from unaware to aware in all three areas. We discover thoughts, moods, and physical habits that impede progress. We easily identify useful actions to take because an aware leader sees things an unaware leader cannot. Many of the people I coach are very talented, very successful, and all it takes is an increase in this triple awareness for performance to improve.

      An executive in charge of corporate affairs in a Fortune Global 500 company told us what he thinks about the three parts of presence:

      Working from the components of presence has changed how we manage media relations, investor relations, all internal and external communication. We were unaware of how unbalanced our approach was—mainly intellectual and very little emotional and physical. No wonder we got unsatisfactory results: we were only connecting to one-third of how people receive a communication. We still make sure the logic is clear. Now, we also research the emotions important to us and our audience, plus the impact on the physical circumstances in which people live and work. When we weave all that in, our communication is less formal, more human, and produces more of the results we want.

      To echo Daniel Goleman, if you notice what you previously failed to notice, you will think and do things you could never do before. When you notice thoughts, emotions, and physical activity, you start the presence improvement journey.

Presence Principle #2: The first act of leadership is presence

      Presence is where leadership begins. The present is the only place we envision the future, learn from the past, and cause progress. When our presence is compromised, so is our leadership.

      “Back when I did not have a senior executive position, I found out that many people thought of me as introverted. Since I became CEO that now is interpreted as aloof,” one CEO told us. “Also, before people thought of me as someone who asked challenging questions. Now I hear that I’m intimidating. I know my ability to lead is damaged if people think I’m aloof and intimidating.”

      Near the launch of his tenure, our friend made a simple change to fix this perception: whenever he’s in the elevator or moving through the office, he puts his smartphone away and greets anyone he sees.

      “Really being with people is something I’ve had to cultivate because it is more comfortable and automatic for me to be with the smartphone and answer a few messages,” he said. “The results have been encouraging. I hear that people actually think of me as a colleague who cares about who they are, not just what they do. Also, people open up more and tell me things I did not know—very useful.”

      When someone is headfirst in their smartphone, answering a text, or otherwise distracted while you’re speaking to them, what thoughts