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Leadership Workshop (3 of 12) - Sharpen the Focus

Leading at Light Speed is a groundbreaking leadership book by Eric Douglas describing the 10 Quantum Leaps which build trust, spark innovation, and create a high-performing organization. Quantum Leap #2 details ways to sharpen the Focus.

There is a preference for some leaders to shy away from fully focusing because they think that it hinders them from grasping opportunities. But when vision is fuzzy, trust goes in the tank. Major conflicts go unaddressed. Potentially, politics have the ability to replace output and results. Bureaucracy can trump innovation. Absence of true leadership will turn people away. Here’s one example:

For nearly 100 years, Sears Roebuck was the greatest catalog retailer in the world. The primary goals were the invention of new ideas and superb consumer service. As a result, its financial house was in order. Then in the early 1980s, Sears started to diversify into higher-margin, unrelated financial services in order to boost its stock price. Its vision became muddied. Was it to be the innovator in low price retailing? It has the potential to become a pioneer in catalog marketing - which will place it in a comfortable situation in e-commerce? No, its vision was to make more money.

Because its vision was primarily financial, Sears lost sight of its catalog and retail business. In rural areas, Wal-Mart and others aggressively marketed a different retail option. Through new strategic alterations, they discovered methods to enhance margins and generate significantly better profits. As soon as it happened, Sears’ boasted a mixture of service, quality, and pricing sharply declined. It fell to a place of mediocrity among retailers - and concurrently lost a significant amount of share value.

When the strategic focus is understood:

People embrace change and adapt their jobs accordingly.
People look at their successes in light of how well the whole team executes.
People spring into action.
People were not afraid to come forward with pressing issues and present them in a public forum.
High morale is connected to low turnover rates.

When the strategic focus is not understood:

People lack energy or motivation to change.
People measure themselves by achieving tasks – or not at all.
People are reactive.
People are reluctant to raise conflicts or sensitive issues.
The tendency for low morale and high turnover is prevalent.

Another example of fuzzy vision is America Online (AOL).In the initial stages, Steve Case, the founder of AOL, desired to alter the way people acquired and learned new information. In the early 1990s, the fight for dominance of the online information business were between AOL and its two main competitors Prodigy and CompuServe. The impending merge with Time-Warner was a distant seven years away. During the next six years, AOL shot up progressively in growth. Case built partnerships with information providers, grew subscribers, and extolled the importance of “content communities.” At the pinnacle of the first dot com boom in 2000, AOL bought Time-Warner. Steve Case became a billionaire.

But suddenly they fell from grace. Coincident with the merger with Time Warner, AOL lost its vision of being the best online information provider. It instead tried to build shareholder value through marketing partnerships. Its strategy to be a prominent online advertiser backfired because the advertising packages irritated subscribers and showed negligible value to customers and potential ad buyers.

When the hoped-for synergies with time Warner ’s traditional content failed to materialize, AOL’s focus became very fuzzy indeed. talented people came and went. the internet bubble burst. AOL came under a cloud for phony revenue reporting. the stock price declined dramatically. Case was forced out. The year 2009 marked the remaining chapter in one of history’s worst company mergers when Time-Warner detached from AOL - it served as a symbol of an ambiguous plan.

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