Peripheral Vision; the Key to Your Long Term Business Success

In my business coaching practice, I have learned that one of the differences between inexperienced and experienced business owners is how well they manage their peripheral vision and adjust to what they see. Another way to succeed is to keep an eye on daily responsibilities while staying aware and focused on the marketplace and its long-term vision. Here is a very illustrative example that I read recently and accepted.

How Peripheral Vision Leads to Long-Term Business Success

In almost all sports, the player is always looking forward and not at what she is doing.  In basketball, the experienced player does not watch herself handle the ball.  Instead, she looks down at the court to see where she must go or pass.  The player’s field of vision is not the few feet in front of her but the whole field before and beside her.  The more of the court the player can see and keep track of, the greater her abilities to avoid opponents, plan a path through the field, and anticipate the movements of others.  The distance and amount of territory the player can keep track of is called the visual field.  This requires the combination of two distinct skills.  First, the player must look farther ahead than her immediate surroundings.  She has to look where she wants to be, not where she is.  Second, even though the human eye has a narrow field of focus (only a tiny portion of the eye is in focus), the player must be able to distinguish activities in those areas that are not currently in focus.  These skills are critical in business also.  It should be apparent how they would apply to a complex barrage of distractions in the ongoing operation of your business.

There is a tendency to focus with tunnel vision on what is right in front of you.  This is a natural reaction.  The information the leader is thinking about can be overwhelming, and it is easy to become visually fixated on what is happening in front of you.  Looking ahead requires even more input.  At first, it can be not easy, but as the leader develops skills into second-nature habits, they can spend more conscious time expanding their visual field.

An everyday example of these skills at work can be drawn from the scenario of trying to walk through a crowded sidewalk.  Whether conscious of it or not, your brain tries to anticipate the movements of those in front of you.  By gauging the rhythm and timing of your speed and the speed and position of others on the sidewalk, your brain calculates when and where openings should appear that you can walk through.  To make the calculations in time to be helpful, you must look a certain distance ahead of where you are. If you were to look at the ground or only a couple of feet ahead of you, you would frequently bump into people.  You achieve a particular movement level and anticipate your environment’s changing conditions while keeping tabs on your immediate surroundings through peripheral vision.  Your body responds automatically by adjusting its speed and position as you dodge the people around you.

As a business owner and executive, you must constantly judge where you are in the marketplace, your team’s performance,  and your plans & goals. There is an incredible amount of data to process, and decisions must be made quickly and thoroughly.  Under time pressure, the natural tendency is to revert to the ingrained habits that you had when your business was small and you were less experienced.  In most cases, this was as a single proprietor or technical expert, and suggests that you might do what a neophyte basketball player does….you carefully watch the ball bounce as you dribble instead of watching the entire court.  As your experience grows, your ability to navigate and react to the traffic on the busy business sidewalk becomes more natural, much like what you learned as you grew up.  Improving your peripheral vision is critical to your long-term business success.

So, keep your head up and focus on the whole court before you. Anticipate what will unfold in the near and short term.  Practice your cross-over dribble without watching your feet.  This is what I mean when I say that improving your peripheral vision is critical to your long-term business success. It’s a skill worth mastering, and I’m here to help you do just that.

If you want to work on your skills, I am the coach who can help you get the most out of your game.  To learn more, download my new eBook,  “The 10 Critical Responsibilities of a Business Owner“.

Coach Dave