Back in
http://leadershippubtalk.blogspot.com/2009/03/it-takes-village-to-raise-leader.html, anonymous said the following: "A leader is completely FOCUSED on achieving a clearly defined mission. The leader knows where they are going. A person who refuses to accept defeat in reaching their goal. A leader is a WINNER, even though they face defeat they refuse to accept a loss as failure, losses are setbacks on the way to ultimate mission accomplishment.
This post is devoted to focus. A few of my own thoughts:
- For a leader focus is as much about repetition in communication as it is individual concentration and dedication. Repeating the same message in multiple ways is critical for a common direction across an organization
- Good to Great
provides an excellent framework for strategic focus - where the "hedgehog concept" is introduced. Namely, having a deep understanding of the intersection between three areas in the form of a simple, crystalline concept that defines what an organization is striving to achieve. The three areas are:
1. What you can be best in the world at (note that this is not necessarily the current core competancies)?
2. What you are passionate about?
3. What drives your economic engine (what's the denominator that profit is measured against? eg profit per customer visit - use cash flow instead of profit for the public sector)? - Focus without listening and feedback can be dangerous. What measures or feedback mechanisms can you put in place to make sure you're not focusing on bringing down your organization?
I'd love to hear your thoughts on how to achieve focus, good books you've read on the topic, or any instances where you've seen focus as an issue. Post away!
Focus is a great topic to achieve growth, particularly for large conglomerates. It begins with understanding the core business mission and then defining the business strategy that aligns with the people and systems inherent in the organization with the needs of the customer. A good plan takes into consideration all of the affected stakeholders in the equation. I believe focus begins with the voice of the customer (VOC).
ReplyDeleteIn today’s information age, innovation and new product and service development are occurring at lightening speeds, and it is increasingly difficult to sustain unique products and services in a highly competitive, global environment. Strong customer relationships can help achieve focus on products and services that will create value for the customer, create loyalty to the brand, and ultimately achieve growth.
Alignment to the mission begins with understanding the macro environment that the organization or business unit is operating within and focusing the product and service development around these trends. The environmental forces include social, economic, technological, competitive, and regulatory. There is a great Harvard Business case study, “GE’s Growth Strategy: The Immelt Initiative”, that addresses the strategic direction and challenges for GE under Immelt’s leadership.
There is an additional blog by Chris Zook on the Harvard Business Review’s website that is worthy of reading. The title of the blog is “Don’t Underestimate the Power of Focus”. Here is a link to the blog: http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/cs/2007/08/dont_underestimate_the_power_o.html. You may need to submit a free registration to the website to gain access. Another interesting article to read relative to focus is the HBR article “Silo Busting: How to Execute on the Promise of Customer Focus”.
Thanks Dandy! A note - I'm not sure I'd look to GE these days for examples of successful leadership. They seem to be floundering since Jack left? Would be very interesting to see an analysis on what's changed since he did and how that's resulted in such markedly different performance.
ReplyDeleteI'll definitely check out the blog you referenced. Keep the great posts coming!
Focus is great if you've already defined what is important.
ReplyDeleteIf you don't know what is important, or are not prepared to listen and take feedback - then all the focus in the world is not going to help.
Once you know what is important though - focus is key. It's the inner YES that allows you to make saying NO a lot easier.
Too true. Even better - until you have determined what's important through customer, employee, and other stakeholder's feedback then you still have something focus on. Namely, getting customer, employee, and other stakeholder's feedback...! ;)
ReplyDeleteMaintaining focus is vital to accomplishing goals. It seems more and more the small detail items distract us from focusing time and efforts on the things that matter most. For me, the biggest hurdle is trying to keep all the layers of management "happy", and still focus my time on my own goals. Too often it seems that our individual goals conflict with our direct managers, or those who report to us. For example, we may have aggressive training goals set by the local team that get drowned out by overpowering financial regional needs. Too often I think we shift the focus of our overall business needs without asking our people to tunnel down and re-align their goals to match accordingly. It's hard to achieve overall objectives when the whole team isn't focused on the same thing.
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