Do you ever think about your company’s position in the marketplace? Why do you exist? Who are your most valued customers? What unique value are you delivering in your marketplace? What are you going to be really good at as a company?

There’s a big difference between getting focused and staying focused. Understanding focus is strategy. Staying in focus is execution.

What are you doing to keep your organization on track? What kind of “operating system” are you running in your business? Does everyone know what they’re accountable for, and how that ties into the strategy of the company?

There’s a cadence of accountability and responsibility needed in order to keeping things on track. Doing a diagnostic of your business, studying it as if it’s an organism, can be very useful. A company is an incredibly complex beast. Sometimes it has more moving parts — and changes faster than — your body! The numbers go up and down, every month, at every level. Like finding the right combination of diet and exercise, you need to know that each part is succeeding in order for the company to reach its overall goals.

If you understand strategy for your company, and identify the right vital factors for your company to succeed – you can discover the specific things that are propelling you forward or holding you back. You need to have a conversation with the leadership team to identify those challenges, and how to meet them – and then keep talking about it, at least once a month at meetings. Focus is not finite, it’s flexible and fluid, and it needs to be constantly reinforced.