How important is focus anyway?

One of the main themes for 2009 I keep hearing over and over again is focus. A quick search of Twitter on the term reveals hundreds of people whose goal is to focus in 2009.

Beverly Macy, a self described biz dev diva, executive coach and author, writes in a Twitter post yesterday, "2009 is all about focus, clarity, and passion."

If there's ever someone to listen to, it's Beverly. I don't know her personally, but she teaches social media at UCLA and is the CEO of Y&M Partners, a strategic advisory firm in Beverly Hills. Very impressive.

But is focus a worthwhile goal in and of itself? What if you focus on the wrong things? What if you're focusing on the right things but you miss bigger and/or better opportunities?

I look back over my career (I shudder to even call it that) and realize that the lack of focus, the inability to focus sometimes, even the intentional decision to focus on not being focused at times, has served me well.

At Northwestern, I assumed I would focus on my studies. Instead, I got an idea for an AP-like news service for campus newspapers and lost all focus. I spent hours toying around with telnet, gopher and listservs. That lead to U-Wire and then a great ride at Student Advantage, which went public and provided me some funds and flexibility early in my career to keep starting stuff.

At GOLF.com, we were focused on creating the best service for recreational golfers. It wasn't until we lost that focus and started to cover the Tours that we hit our stride.

And a look back at Buddy Media for the past year is a study about how not to focus. We started the business to build a virtual currency. We then launched an ad network only to change focus again to pursue the real opportunity we now see, specifically to build a platform to help major brands market across the social networks. If I had focused, we'd still be trying to find our way.

So focusing on how to get the tasks at hand done in the most effective and efficient way possible is key. But keeping your focus without taking time to think, to knock down your ideas and to come up with better ideas is potentially dangerous. Time is indeed your most precious resource in business. Wasting it focusing on the wrong things is disastrous.

Comments

[gregorylent]

looking up focus is interesting, ditto transformation ...

ask a yogi, what is focus? and he will suggest the value of a quiet mind ... where in western management literature is anybody talking about that? ... and yet who knows more about mind?

focus is just another tool for keeping fear at bay, and when it is really needed, it happens automatically ...

now that you have properly dissed focus, tell me, us, what the opposite is, how to achieve it, and why it is valuable to do so ...

thanks for your time, gregory lent

[Frederic Guarino]

great take on the virtues of flexibility vs focus !

Always challenging the apparent status quo and looking beyond your current business is great advice.

With Hemisphere we started with a mobile-specific focus only to get gradually pulled into social media, e-commerce and all-around digital consulting.

[Darren Herman]

I think you can focus and be dynamic at the same time. If you are focusing on Golf.com or Buddy Media, then you can be dynamic and change direction/objectives/strategies/tactics should the market warrant.

I agree with you 100% that narrowing down and focusing myopic and missing the bigger picture is extremely dangerous.

Happy New Year,

Darren

[Nate Westheimer]

Very true. I just finished Bo Peabody's (very short) "Lucky or Smart?"

In it, he constantly points out that we -- the entrepreneurs -- are B students, and therefore our job is not to focus; however, we much hire A students to stay focused until we change the path of the company.

You're spot on, Michael.