Focus, and how to get there as an organisation.

The right things, done the right way. Together.

What if everyone in your org was fully focussed on their unique contribution to the collective goal? That's the power of focus in execution - getting the right shit done, the right way.

Focus doesn't happen magically - it requires two other organisational elements:

Clarity + Direction ?? Focus.

Clarity means:

?? Knowing who is accountable for what.

What roles are present and needed in our organisation?

Why do these roles exist (what is their purpose)? And how are they interlinked?

If it's all explicit, and clearly understood: good.

And if it's not - we fix that. Same if it turns out no role is explicitly accountable for something. (Careful with the balance!)

?? Knowing how decisions get made.

Who is involved, and who isn't?

What process do we use to make decisions involving more than one role? Which decisions are safe enough to give a single role mandate over?

And how do we change our accountabilities, structure and strategy?

Things don't need to get stuck in limbo, because we understand the path to action.

?? Knowing what gets measured.

What are we steering on collectively, and from individual roles?

How do we measure those things, and how do we turn that data into insight?

We can steer on insights, and don't waste time tracking or discussing irrelevant things.

?? And of course, true clarity means that all of this is not just known, but understood and bought into. Why do we do things this way?

All are needed for clarity on roles and cooperation in an organisation.

Direction means:

?? A dot on the horizon

Do we all have a shared understanding of the direction we are going?

Do we understand why we are going there? And what the difference is between here and there?

We move in a collective direction.

?? A route of approach

From what angle or angles are we going to approach our dot on the horizon?

Which "tools" that we have will we be leveraging to get there, and which tools do we need to collect or make along the way?

How many steps ahead do we plan? And which places on the map are we staying far away from on our travels there?

We organise our approach and move collectively.

?? Tangible priorities

Which things deserve or demand the bulk of our free resources (including time and energy)?

How will we free up and access more resources for these most important things? And what beautiful distractions will we ignore (known & unknown)?

We direct and apply our resources collectively for maximum impact.

?? Here too, if we do not all understand the high-over and how this translates to our own day-to-day, we can not move collectively.

These are key elements in having strategic direction.

Clarity + Direction ?? Focus.

If clarity on roles and strategic direction come together, we enable Focus on Execution.

Focus on executing the strategy by:

?? Translating an overal strategy to a personal day-to-day. Because everyone knows exactly how accountability is distributed AND what the overal direction and route of approach is.

?? Tracking and adjusting what matters. Because it is clear what we need to steer by AND how to prioritise adjustments and decisions.

When true focus happens and we start putting all our available force behind doing the right things in the right way...

When we all move as individuals with clarity on what our place in the system is towards a collective goal along a collective route..

...the impact we can make is tremendous.

What would it feel like to move like this, together as individuals? What would be the impact on your organisation? On the things you could achieve, and on how you would feel doing so?

And what could you explore today to get a little closer to that?

I'm Roshan de Jong. I help organisations build systems that scale their impact, and where people autonomously wipe their own asses. Working on something cool? Say 'hi!'