Focus

In one of the recent firm level announcements where my friend, Arjun was working, I observed that Niraj (name changed) had been made to assume responsibility for 3 divisions, all of which were critical to the firm’s business. Niraj had not led any of the divisions in the past. He neither had the requisite expertise nor did he have the attitude…as some of Arjun’s colleagues said “Baccha hain!!!”

I also got reminded of what Publilius Syrus had said:

“To do two things at once is to do neither”.

If we have only one thing to focus on, we tend to do it well and build knowledge. That’s where the art of focus comes into play.

Loss of focus is one of the biggest mistakes which we often face. This arises because of the limitless choices which we have, lack of clarity, and our indiscipline to sit on our ass for a long period of time. As Blaise Pascal had said, “All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”

As my friend, Arjun has been reiterating this often to me, whenever I waver: “Focus!!! If you are good at this, focus and redirect all your energies towards that objective”. Perhaps, he has got influenced by the book Outliers, whose author Malcolm Gladwell says that,“It takes roughly 10,000 hours of practice to achieve mastery in a field.”

From an investment perspective, loss of focus is also one of the biggest mistakes which managements are succumbed to. This primarily arises when the existing business throws up a lot of cash which cannot be utilized or allocated properly by the management.

This is the time, wherein some firms diversify into unrelated areas in the name of creating shareholder value, most of which do not produce the requisite results. In the last decade, leading companies made ambitious forays into unrelated businesses, viz. a prominent brokerage firm tried out real estate, a telecom giant entered the financial services space, an automobile maker shifted gears to move to defence equipment, and a liquor company took to the skies. All of them bombed.