I remember a leadership offsite where the board wanted fifteen “must win” initiatives. The team nodded, then quietly asked which five they were meant to finish. No one could answer. That company was not short on ambition. It was short on focus.

Growing companies rarely stall because they lack ideas. They stall because energy spreads thin. Every new project steals attention from the last one. Calendars fill. Progress stalls. Leaders feel pressure to do more and accidentally create a plan that no one can carry.

Focus is not a mood. It is a choice to commit to fewer, better bets. It is a promise to your team that what matters will be small enough to finish.

Why focus works

- It concentrates effort. Five priorities with named owners beat fifteen with none.
- It clarifies trade offs. When everything matters, nothing does.
- It builds trust. When leaders decide and defend the list, people believe the path.

A 90 day focus model

Work in quarters. Set five company priorities. Name one owner for each. Agree decision rights in a sentence. Add dates and a single success signal per priority. Everything else sits in a visible backlog.

Run a light rhythm:

- Weekly leadership stand up. Fifteen minutes. Blockers only. Decide in the room.
- Blocker ledger. One line per blocker, one owner, age it, clear it.
- Monthly review. Alignment score, Trust index, and the few outcome metrics that matter.

Two quick stories

National services firm. The CEO had twelve top priorities. We picked five and wrote decision rights. The weekly stand up exposed repeat blockers across sales and ops. Decision time at the top fell by a third in one quarter. People started finishing things again.

B2B tech scale up. A long backlog hid the real issue. Sales and marketing disagreed on who they were for. One priority became clarify position and promise and add proof to the demo. Demo to proposal conversion rose within four months.

Common pitfalls

- Sneaking in a sixth priority. The list grows in meetings and dies in calendars.
- Status theatre. Weekly meetings drift into updates. Keep it to blockers and decisions.
- Unknown decision rights. If no one can say who decides, no one decides.
- Starting mid quarter. Set the five, finish the quarter, then refresh.

Objections I hear

We are different. We need ten. You can run ten workstreams. You cannot lead ten priorities well. Keep five at the top and let teams plan under them.

We need flexibility. Focus does not kill flexibility. It protects it. When true urgency appears, one priority comes off. That is real choice.

What about innovation. Boundaries create space. When teams stop firefighting, you get better ideas and the time to ship them.

Try this week

Draft seven candidate priorities. Sleep on it. Pick five. Name owners and decision rights. Publish the list. Put the weekly stand up in the calendar. Start the blocker ledger with three items.

How to know it is working

Decision time at the top falls. Priority completion rises. Fewer handoffs stall. People stop asking what are we doing and start asking what is blocking us.