First, you do a lot of different “stuff” to figure out where you fit, what do build, what customers need – trying new and different things regularly.
Then, you start to get traction / momentum in one particular area and that becomes the focus – like the narrow part of an hourglass.
Here’s the trap though. The culture to that point has been about being scrappy, responsive, fairly undisciplined and being very busy getting lots of “stuff” done. When you get to that second phase shifting the culture to be more focused on 1 or 2 things and executing the shit out of them is a hard turn to make and many don’t make it.
Instead of focusing on what’s working there is the constant pressure to do more vs do less and then everything gets done at an ok level, but not great, and the window starts to shut, frustrations rise, teams bicker and you lose momentum.
Being disciplined enough to do less and do better is very hard from a cultural perspective.
Now, let’s assume you make it through that, then the hourglass opens back up because you have more resources, better leadership team, strong customers telling you what else they need and more efficiency because you actually know what your doing. You can actually do more again.
That middle section is where good businesses go to die though. It’s squeezes all the poorly lead businesses out of the market.
If you’re in that middle section, try and focus on a couple things, do less and do it well.
Tuesday morning flight thoughts.