“Lack of direction, not lack of time, is the problem. We all have twenty-four hour days.” – Zig Ziglar
Many of the entrepreneurs I know are afflicted with a lack of focus. They have high energy and the ability to keep multiple plates spinning at the same time. It’s actually what has helped them achieve success. The problem comes when it causes their team to lose focus.
With some leaders, each time they get a new idea they go back to their team and tell them to drop what they are doing and work on the new idea. It’s what I call the “flavor of the month syndrome” when the team is starting and stopping initiatives. They don’t know where they are headed or how they are going to get there – wherever “there” is.
Other leaders have major growth objectives and think the more they pile on their teams’ plates, the quicker they will accomplish the growth objectives. What they fail to realize is that generally team members can’t assimilate everything they are asked to do. Instead, productivity decreases because they’ve lost their focus.
How do you channel all that energy in a more focused way? Here are three disciplines to increase your focus.
- Engage
When a team member comes in your office, how often do you turn away from what you were doing to give that person your full attention? If you’re in a meeting and have an agenda, do you ignore ideas team members present so that you can get your point across? Your credibility suffers when team members realize you are not fully present. You need to discipline yourself to engage fully.
- Acclimate
When you climb a mountain, such as Mt. Everest, you don’t start at the bottom and climb all the way to the top. You need to acclimate at base camp so that your body can adjust to the decrease in oxygen and be prepared to climb higher. The same thing is true in business. If you are growing too fast and don’t take time to acclimate, one of three things could happen:
- You’ll experience burnout – yourself and/or your team
- Your infrastructure can’t keep pace with your top line growth and things start to break down
- You can’t identify and nurture the practices worth scaling
It takes discipline to slow down, so you have time to acclimate and enhance your infrastructure. Develop the practices and processes needed to scale the organization to take your business to the next level. What have you done in a high-growth mode to acclimate?
- Plan
I love this quote by Steve Jobs:
“People think focus means saying yes to the things you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I’m actually as proud of the things we haven’t done as the things I have done.”
The growth of Apple was phenomenal after Steve Jobs came back to lead the company for the second time and employed this philosophy. They significantly reduced their product portfolio and focused on the products that were needed to meet customer needs and drive growth. Certainly there were other things that Jobs did to lead to Apple’s growth but a key ingredient was his ability to focus his team.
A.G. Lafley said that leaders don’t like to make choices because they want to keep their options open. This is a boundary issue and it takes discipline. How good are you at jettisoning good ideas so that you can work on the very best?
By implementing these three disciplines you will have a more focused approach to growth. In an earlier blog post I teed this up as one of the three leadership challenges that stall growth.