Posted by Bob Fangmeyer
History, and a host of organizational and personal improvement literature, is replete with the sage advice that extraordinary success comes from having a laser-like focus on the goal you are trying to achieve.
Everyone from Alexander Graham Bell and Jim Collins to the Dali Lama and Donald Rumsfeld have spoken about the importance and power of focus. Well, if it is so obvious why is it so hard to do?
All organizations are faced with a variety of competing needs and expectations and most organizations sincerely want to do as much as they can to meet them. Unfortunately, most don’t do a good job of first understanding the needs and expectations, strategically determining which are the most important, and then managing daily operations to ensure a focus on those that are most important. In fact, it is the sincere desire to “do it all” that frequently leads to a failure to excel.
Jim Collins, in his best-selling book “Good to Great”, spoke to this by quoting Isaiah Berlin who paraphrased an ancient Greek parable about the fox and the hedgehog.
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