UPDATED DISC WORKSHOP ESSENTIALS: Lead DISC Workshops with confidence! Details here →

Attentiveness

Posted 5 years ago

What is the importance of addressing attentiveness? It’s easy for anyone to lose attentiveness and overlook the most subtle clues. Clues that could make a big difference in how well we get along with others, and how well we solve problems. Read this week’s story on Platinum Rules for Success and learn about Dr. Tony’s tips on attentiveness!

Attentiveness

by Dr. Tony Alessandra

Attentiveness means being aware of what is going on in your environment. It can be as simple as noticing when someone is getting bored, to sensing that now is not the right time to put your ideas across. It is knowing when to act and when not to act.

Attentiveness is also the ability to tune into a problem and come up with its essential components. “What is really going wrong here?” That insight provides the basis for envisioning something that will truly work better.

The fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes, who was created by Arthur Conan Doyle, had legendary powers of attention to detail. Sherlock would notice a dropping of cigarette ash on the carpet, or a faint smudge of billiard chalk on a finger, or recognize that a person’s accent did not go with his Middle Eastern garb and he would have the clue he needed to solve the case.

Attentiveness means you are open to outside stimuli entering your field of perception or, if the stimuli are subtler, entering your intuition. It means you are open to more information coming in through your eyes and ears, through your sense of touch and through what is known as your kinesthetic sense. That means how your muscles and the organs of your body react. Our bodies can tell us loads about how other people are feeling if we are attentive enough. Earlier we discussed the trait of empathy, putting yourself in the other person’s shoes. The ability to be attentive to others allows you the access to the other person’s feelings, and sometimes those feelings are mirrored in your own body – feelings such as fear, sadness and discomfort.

There is an old parable about a very educated English gentleman visiting a well-known Buddhist master to see what he could learn from the spiritual teacher. The holy man poured a cup of tea for the Englishman and kept pouring and pouring until there was tea all over the floor.

Finally, the Englishman could not sit silently any longer and asked: “Why are you overfilling the cup?” The Buddhist master replied: “This cup is like your head. It is so full that nothing else will go into it. You must empty yourself first in order to learn anything new from me.”

The trait we are discussing – attentiveness – works a lot like that. In order to be attentive, we need to empty ourselves of other thoughts and set ways of seeing things. When we use our senses to take in all we can about other people, we can much more accurately adjust our behavior to the needs of others. When we are attentive to situations, we can exercise that power of vision we spoke of earlier to make positive changes for others and ourselves.


attentiveness
Follow Dr. Tony Alessandra

Dr. Tony Alessandra has a street-wise, college-smart perspective on business, having been raised in the housing projects of NYC to eventually realizing success as a graduate professor of marketing, internet entrepreneur, business author, and hall-of-fame keynote speaker. He earned a BBA from Notre Dame, a MBA from the Univ. of Connecticut and his PhD in marketing from Georgia State University (1976). Known as “Dr. Tony” he’s authored 30+ books and 100+ audio/video programs. He was inducted into the NSA Speakers Hall of Fame (1985) and Top Sales World’s Hall of Fame (2010). Meetings & Conventions Magazine has called him “one of America’s most electrifying speakers”.

Dr. Tony is also the Founder/CVO of Assessments 24×7. Assessments 24×7 is a global leader of online DISC assessments, delivered from easy-to-use online accounts popular with business coaches and Fortune 500 trainers around the world. Interested in learning more about these customized assessment accounts? Please contact us.