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Writer's pictureDoug Weiss

Paying Attention

I recently offered to do some software testing and part of the preparation included taking a test to determine if I had the requisite skills. While it has been a while since I have been in software development I wondered if I was up to it, but it seems some skills are like riding a bike; once you know how you don't forget. Not that it was especially demanding; but it did require some focus and a methodical approach.


It put me in mind of a deceptively simple test we used during initial interviews with candidates for quality assurance roles. We would ask the candidate to tell us step by step how they brushed their teeth. Ask yourself this questions and see how well you do.


The unskilled would say something along the lines of: "well I squeeze some toothpaste onto a brush then I brush up and down." Correct? Nope. What we were looking for was attention to the details. Where did the brush come from, did you screw off the cap from the tube of toothpaste before or after picking up the brush, which hand was the brush in, which the tube of toothpaste?


Now you may think, what is the point of all that--everyone knows how to brush their teeth and what difference does it make if you can answer those questions or not? But let's imagine we were describing the sequences involved in launching a rocket destined to take passengers to space--thousands of tiny processes and sequences that must perform precisely as designed or the rocket doesn't launch--or worse, blows up. I chose that example for a reason, it is exactly what occurred in 1986 when the rocket carrying the space shuttle Challenger and its astronauts were lost 73 seconds after launching. It turns out some O ring seals failed, leaking burning gas that caused the rupture of the external fuel tank. Do you think quality assurance played any role in that disaster?


Not every circumstance is that dramatic, but paying attention, being present in the moment is a tremendously difficult thing to sustain for any of us. The higher the stakes, of course, the greater the degree of attention must be paid to an infinite number of tiny details which is why QA is not easy. In our everyday lives, the consequences are infrequently life threatening--until they are. Failing to pay attention while driving a car, performing some mechanical task, working around dangerous chemicals or substances are some obvious moments in time when we need to pay attention. But we get lulled into a state of inattention by the sheer repetitive nature of so much of what we do.


In fact, most of us, most of the time, are not paying much attention, we are going through the motions of tasks and actions we've done hundreds of times before and unless something feels wrong, or different, or grabs our attention we simply do not realize we are not in the moment. Have you ever misplaced your keys, your glasses, or walked into a room and asked yourself what you were there for? Those are examples of inattention. It happens--to most of us and while we might put it down to age, or stress or busy lives, it is indicative of something much more disturbing. Modern life is so filled with details, so busy and often so demanding of our attention that we learn to filter out a lot of what is happening around us.


What gets jettisoned in our efforts to relieve ourselves of burdensome details is a great deal of tremendously important awareness of what is going on in our worlds--what is going on in the lives of those around us, our loved ones, friends and family and our own actions and reactions to those clues. When we are not in the moment we fail to catch the nuances--see the telltales that betray others' feelings and emotions, their state of mind. When we are not in the moment we are simply reactive, what's more, often we are mindlessly reactive. It isn't what we think we are doing, nor what we want to be, but it is too often what in fact we are doing--simply reacting out of habit.


When we place ourselves in unfamiliar circumstances our habits don't serve us well, we are forced to pay attention however briefly. And when we do we may discover things that are present or not in our lives; we may in fact begin to live differently, consciously. Try this experiment yourselves. Take a break from your routine. Go some place unfamiliar and just observe your surroundings. What do you see, hear, feel? You are in the moment, aware on a wholly different level of your surroundings and the world around you.


We don't have to take ourselves out of our familiar environments and situations to be in the moment, we can make a choice to do so anytime. It takes a little discipline to stop, look, listen and give ourselves time to process rather than react. Try setting aside a half hour a day when you consciously avoid input--no phone, TV, music or book to distract you. You might call it meditation, but it doesn't require any special training, just a willingness to suspend judgement, suspend that part of your psyche that is evaluating and assigning meaning to what your observe. Just be aware.


Even that small amount of time each day will change you, slow you down, and teach you something you did not realize. You may find that in a short amount of time you crave that quiet period of inspection and introspection. Albert Camus wrote “In order to understand the world, one has to turn away from it on occasion." Those are words to live by.

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