Focus, people!

Over the past month I have been interviewing stakeholders for a client's strategic planning process.  The interviews have sought feedback on strategic options open to the client.  The options range from "keep on being whatever the client wants us to be" to "identify a few big opportunities and really commit to tackling them."  

The feedback I am getting from these interviews is that most stakeholders believe the organization will grow much faster and have much greater impact and success if it opts to focus on a few big opportunities rather than continue to "be what the client wants us to be."  

Is that a surprise?  Maybe not, but in thinking about most of my client work over the years I recognize that lack of focus has been a big issue.  In fact, I think lack of focus is a bigger barrier to greater success than often recognized. Surely it's a continuing challenge that most of us grapple with. 

Too often we are like children in a toy store, with every shiny thing attracting us.  We are helter-skelter, scattered, all over the map.  Especially in this age when we are continually barraged by communications on all sorts of topics, we are easily diverted and distracted.  But the dysfunction extends beyond us as individuals: Our businesses like ourselves typically chase too many opportunities and get diverted from the best follow-through.  (Organizational ADHD, anyone?  National Institutes of Health: "ADHD is a problem with inattentiveness, over-activity, impulsivity, or a combination.") 

The salient question, whether about ourselves or our businesses, is, how many opportunities can we chase fully and well when we are trying to go down many roads at once?

That's why I see beauty in a well-run strategic planning and implementation process.  Run right, it forces identification of and continuing focus on acting on a tight set of specific strategies designed to offer the highest likelihood of moving the organization forward in the most favorable direction, to the shared vision of future success.  The process lays down roads and puts up fences to keep the organization and those charged with its success from easily straying. 

Backing up a bit more, I can even speculate that many organizations do not recognize and especially do not act on strategic planning as a fundamental priority because they are so distracted by day-to-day activity and all sorts of communications and seeming opportunities to chase.

Focus, people!  Get a process - what I endorse is effective strategic planning and strategic management - and escape from being diverted by so many communications and opportunities.  Focus and act on what will move you to your vision of greater success.

Comments

[david k waltz]

Lee,

I just finished reading the Steve Jobs biography, and believe he would agree with you - there is a quote in there about how Apple succeeded because it chose to focus on very few things.

Thanks!

[Lee Crumbaugh]

David, yes, I agree, Apple is a prime example of the value of strategic focus. I've been musing about successful companies that seemingly are more complex, but the ones that come to mind are not really that complex and use some sort of organizing principle that simplifies things. For example, ITW consists of hundreds of companies and products, but each is separately managed, not directed from ITW headquarters. GE is into a variety of things, but each part is a business unto itself and rises and falls on its own accord. Do you have examples to the contrary - companies that are exceeding complex, going in all directions, and yet are highly successful? It would be interesting if there were such animals to understand how they make it work.