The problem with deep thought is you can waste a lot of time thinking about something that is no longer important. If your project is doomed to be canceled for reason outside your control there is no difference in output between someone who does nothing (ie should be fired for lack of work) and someone spends his days working hard.
Those who do better networking tend to be onto those trends. They will find out about opportunities where 10 minutes of focused work will net a large [sale, or other win for the company] for the. 10 minutes of the right work can be far more valuable than a whole month of deep focused work. (though that 10 minutes probably builds on - and takes credit for - someone else's months of deep work)
There is no clear win here. However if you like to be a deep focus person you should force yourself to spend some time every week figuring out the pulse of the company so you are at least doing useful work.
There's a Richard Hamming quote, along those lines, that I like. I do keep in mind he was surrounded by brilliant and stimulating people at Bell Labs. Some closed door or deep work is necessary to shut out the truly unproductive aspects of modern office work. Doing this without seeming rude is an art.
"I noticed the following facts about people who work with the door open or the door closed. I notice that if you have the door to your office closed, you get more work done today and tomorrow, and you are more productive than most. But 10 years later somehow you don't know quite know what problems are worth working on; all the hard work you do is sort of tangential in importance. He who works with the door open gets all kinds of interruptions, but he also occasionally gets clues as to what the world is and what might be important. Now I cannot prove the cause and effect sequence because you might say, ``The closed door is symbolic of a closed mind.'' I don't know. But I can say there is a pretty good correlation between those who work with the doors open and those who ultimately do important things, although people who work with doors closed often work harder. Somehow they seem to work on slightly the wrong thing - not much, but enough that they miss fame."
Those who do better networking tend to be onto those trends. They will find out about opportunities where 10 minutes of focused work will net a large [sale, or other win for the company] for the. 10 minutes of the right work can be far more valuable than a whole month of deep focused work. (though that 10 minutes probably builds on - and takes credit for - someone else's months of deep work)
There is no clear win here. However if you like to be a deep focus person you should force yourself to spend some time every week figuring out the pulse of the company so you are at least doing useful work.