Simone Weil, French philosopher and member of the Resistance wrote the following: “Attention is the purest and rarest form of generosity.”
Attention and Generosity. Two scarce commodities. Attention is something that we only give in the presence of someone with more power: a boss, a bully, the guy holding a gun at the bank. And scarcity being one of those mindsets that makes generosity feel like a weakness or a character flaw
What do meetings look like at your company? How many people are checking their phones? For that matter, what are we doing when someone calls us to discuss a new strategy or an unexpected hiccup in the project or just to say, “Hello”? Where is our attention? Why do we choose to check our phone for a ‘like’ or an email or a badge from our favorite retailer?
What does it feel like when you meet one of those special people who lock their eyes on you and seem to absorb every word you’re saying as if you’re the only person in their world? It’s their super power and we tend to remember those people for a very long time. We remember their attention. We remember their generosity.