James Keyes

If you're a leader listening to this, you have employees who work with you. They might be particular things they're really passionate about. As an organization, are you able to even implement something like a matching program that every dollar they donate to a particular organization, your organization matches it?

That's not actually going to take you a lot of time, but as an organization, you're saying we stand for something. It might be as a leader that you have the opportunity to control sponsorship dollars for different events. Maybe that's a way. So you may not have a lot of time on your hands, but you may have resources. It could be the opposite.

It could be you don't have a lot of financial resources to contribute, but you do have time where you could volunteer and you could help. So I think it is that outer concentric circle of community. But I do believe each of us has a responsibility to truly take care of the community we serve in and the greater world.

But I think each of us every day can make different decisions around what we're putting our attention towards that have a greater impact on the world. And I think for each of us, it doesn't have to be something we're spending time on every day. I just want to raise the awareness of how we're investing our global attention. The first thing I would suggest is eliminate distractions.

According to the Information Overload Group, it costs US businesses $588 billion every year because of constant interruptions. So think about how do we eliminate distractions? And just as a leader, one of the biggest distractions is you. You as the leader are often the problem, right?

Because you're constantly saying to your team, hey, you have a second, you have a minute, you have a second, you have a minute. It's never a second. It's never a minute. And then you might say to someone, hey, can you, what do you think about this? Now that person then takes that and says, oh my God, my boss wants me to go find out about this. And so they go on this path.

As a leader, you call meetings unnecessarily. You've always had an 8.30 Monday morning meeting. So you still have the 8.30 Monday morning meeting. And I'm suggesting maybe what you want to consider is every time you ask someone to spend their minutes with you, they never get them back.

So as a leader, can you eliminate some of the distractions, including how you are a distraction to your team as well? I often consult to organizations, let's just say even on their environment. Some of my clients have moved from offices to open plan productivity. And while open plan is collaborative and it's fun and it's energetic, it can also bring its own set of challenges.

And so for many of my clients, I've had to be able to teach them, how do you pay attention in these fast-moving open plan environments? So I want to encourage the leaders, have a look at where you can eliminate distractions. Maybe encourage people to wear headphones if they're trying to get work done. Book a meeting space if they're trying to get very thoughtful strategic work done.

Allow some of your team members to work from home if they're working on something strategic and important. Start cancelling meetings that are unnecessary. Stop sending emails late at night. Oh my gosh, so many leaders that I work with, I beg them to stop sending emails late at night.

While it may be out of your brain and in someone else's inbox, every time you send a team member an email late at night, you're stealing minutes from their family. And I want you just to think about, you can write the email, just don't send it. Save it as a draft and send it tomorrow.

There are so many ways as a leader, we can help prevent this wasted money and time when we start focusing on how we can eliminate being a distraction.

People forget that 7-Eleven was bankrupt back in 1991, shortly after I joined the company. And I thought, man, what a bad career decision. I went from a major oil company to 7-Eleven thinking that it was going to be a great career trajectory. And I find them now bankrupt. This is one of those things that change equals opportunity.

People forget that 7-Eleven was bankrupt back in 1991, shortly after I joined the company. And I thought, man, what a bad career decision. I went from a major oil company to 7-Eleven thinking that it was going to be a great career trajectory. And I find them now bankrupt. This is one of those things that change equals opportunity.

The company had 10 years of same-store sales declines, was really on a difficult trajectory. It was growing still, but it was having trouble keeping up with competitors, and it ultimately had to file for bankruptcy. But... that gave it the opportunity to reinvent itself.

The company had 10 years of same-store sales declines, was really on a difficult trajectory. It was growing still, but it was having trouble keeping up with competitors, and it ultimately had to file for bankruptcy. But... that gave it the opportunity to reinvent itself.

We were able to look at the success of our licensed operations around the world, places like Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, bring those learnings back to the United States. So we were able to reinvent the company and come out of bankruptcy as a successful entity. For me personally, It ended up being a great opportunity because I thought I was going to lose my job like everybody else.

We were able to look at the success of our licensed operations around the world, places like Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, bring those learnings back to the United States. So we were able to reinvent the company and come out of bankruptcy as a successful entity. For me personally, It ended up being a great opportunity because I thought I was going to lose my job like everybody else.

But we came out of bankruptcy and I ended up with a promotion and was put in charge of strategic planning for the new enterprise, led to then a career trajectory that gave me an opportunity ultimately to be CEO of 7-Eleven. So we took adversity, crisis, and then turned it into the next 10 years, 15 years of significant success, which when we sold the company in the year 2005,

But we came out of bankruptcy and I ended up with a promotion and was put in charge of strategic planning for the new enterprise, led to then a career trajectory that gave me an opportunity ultimately to be CEO of 7-Eleven. So we took adversity, crisis, and then turned it into the next 10 years, 15 years of significant success, which when we sold the company in the year 2005,