Its All About Focus
I had a great meeting with a guy in San Francisco yesterday. During the meeting we chatted about his current businesses and his aspirations for where he wanted to take them. What was interesting was the breadth of ideas that he was tackling all at once and it got me to thinking about how important focus is.
In any job there are always competing priorities. It doesn’t matter whether you are in sales, marketing, finance, HR, what ever, there are always 100 things you can do and only time to do 5 of them. What differentiates the effective people from the rest of us is that they decide what they are not going to do and this decision is based on the goal that they are striving for.
Therefore, in the example of the guy i chatted with yesterday, it became clear that the best long term option for the growth of his business would be through focusing on delivering property portals to his target countries. This would mean that he would have to stop the web development and translation businesses that his is currently doing. The down side would be a loss in some revenues however the up side is the ability to really focus on what matters in the long term.
In building the REA Group, i always had a belief that it was one person, one role, one focus! It is only by adopting this approach that people become truly effective and stand head and shoulders above their peers.
So what does this mean for you? Simple, work out what truly matters for you and then make sure that every task is aligned to that target – if it is not, don’t do it. If you have too much on your plate, spend time working out what you are not going to do and then set expectations of those around you.
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Absolutely. I think this is something entrepreneurs often grapple with, because they see a host of related opportunities out there and can be impatient to go after them. But the reality is that effective execution requires focus. One of the best ways to see if someone has a clear strategy is to ask what they are choosing not to do.
What’s interesting is that many people know this at an intellectual level, but for various reasons, focus seems to be hard to achieve in practice (see my post on this at http://www.latentfuture.com/blog/why-is-focus-so-hard.html).
This should fall into the “stating the bleeding obvious” category Simon, but it’s a timely reminder that we often bite off way more than we can chew.
The most important sentence in this post, I think was:
“What differentiates the effective people from the rest of us is that they decide what they are not going to do and this decision is based on the goal that they are striving for.”
Cheers.
Nicely put. In his book “The Dip” Seth Godin sets out talking about a quote that says “winners neve rquit and quitters never win”, and how he thinks that totaly wrong. He says winners know exactly what to quit, and when. I think that aligns nicely with your idea expressed here – choose those things that *don’t* lead you to your goal or appear to not be winning paths in their own right and quit them.
It is amazing how much you can achive when you have a single focus.
Up unitl October 2006 we were a traditional real estate agency. we did both residential sales and property management. We were a part of a major australasian real estate franchise. We had seen strong growth in our property management division, so the decision was made to sell of our sales division and focus 100% on property management.
Since we have focused we have grown the business from 1200 properties under management to over 2000 and have gone from a single office opertation to four offices and a staff of over 40.
Simon, keep up the blogginf and good luck in your new ventures.
If you focus, you have to make choices. If you make choices, you might make errors. Thus, there is a risk. The risk to chose the wrong goal.
So, let’s rephrase the “Who doesn’t risk, doesn’t win” to “Who doesn’t focus, doesn’t win”. It’s a more positive way to express the same.
Hi Simon,
It was great talking with you the other day.
Focus is key! What can be particularly difficult is when you are dependent on an existing business model for revenue that you know will not take your business to a desired level. But yes, you are totally right. It was difficult when we had to clean shop and let go of 10 people to refocus our energy on the bigger opportunity. This is never fun, but ultimately is the answer to reaching success in the long term. Being candid with those that are not going to be part of the new focus is the best approach. They need to know where they stand. For the most part people are understanding as long as you are honest and upfront with them.
Expanding on the first part of this comment, a lot of entrepreneurs don’t make the change because to some degree their business is working. Over 9 months ago we decided to drop the website dev and laser beam focus on the bigger opportunity even though we were profitable, it is a nice feeling once you get through the transition and start to gain momentum. Big things to come!
Hi Simon,
am in a charitable institution, and there is need all around. the temptation to try and solve all the world’s problems is great sometimes, but as you correctly pointed out, when we try to do too much, we do not finish anything well. the thing is to make a TO DO list and delete from it what not to do, that way, you are left with what you can actually and realistically do. that’s a great tip that i have shared with my colleagues. thanks for doing what you do, so many of us (here in kenya) are benefitting as well.