Focus On What Matters

“Not everything that counts, can be counted and not everything that can be counted, counts”

This speaks to many things, but it should clearly have meaning to a business owner or manager.  At a minimum, the business owner needs to be able to focus on the critical factors and zone in on them right away, thus focusing on what matters most.

Be aware that your observation and questioning skills as a business owner will need to be heightened to see those factors that can’t be counted. As well, be able to recognize that some of what can be seen and counted, doesn’t matter.

Gain the insight to know what is critical, what is not, and then communicate that clearly.Develop the ability of being able to take a helicopter view of your business. Learn to separate the wheat from the chaff – the vital tasks from the trivial activities – the important from the operational tasks.

Use your questioning, process thinking and observation skills to determine the critical factors facing you, your business and your customers. Determine which will keep you from succeeding. Continuously evaluate, that not all of factors are ones that can be counted or measured and be looking for the other signs to these types of problems and opportunities, knowing that they might be harder to see, but no less important.

Bring clarity and focus to all your actions by focusing on ‘what’s important’ and eliminating the rest.