The ability to deliver a good elevator speech is a sign of a focused executive. Focused leaders can mobilize an organization toward a clearly defined purpose and work tirelessly to ensure that everyone is working on the right road and in the same lane. The benefits of a focused organization are clear. Focused organizations work on fewer things at one time, but get more done over time. Focused organizations are able to react quicker and make fewer mistakes, because they have more senior people directly overseeing the initiatives.
Focused organizations spend time talking about projects rather than talking about project tracking.
Focused organizations can hold people accountable for results. Because we live in a complex world, it's easy to get muddle-headed and let our project lists get out of control. This is one of the major impediments to job satisfaction and career success that I see in my executive coaching practice. One of my clients reports to the CIO at a large, well-known financial services company. While working through the focus question, I reviewed his IT objectives.