Strategy and The Singular Focus

A follow up to yesterday's blog post regarding singular focus, I took the following excerpt from an interview with highly regarded Harvard Professor Cynthia Montgomery by Dan Schawbel at Forbes.com. The full interview can be found here: http://www.forbes.com/sites/danschawbel/2012/09/03/how-to-become-the-strategist-your-company-needs/

The selected excerpt:
"If a firm’s strategy is not clear, people throughout the organizations have a right and a duty to press for clarity. If the answers aren’t forthcoming or satisfying, there’s reason to doubt the business’ prospects and whether one is likely to thrive in that environment."

Reinforcing the Value of A Singular Focus:
Consider for a moment how this relates to yesterday's post about Singularity of Focus. By having a single focus that is deployed throughout the firm and woven into its very essence you provide the clarity that helps stakeholders (employees, shareholders, business partners) determine the business' prospects and ability to thrive. The singular focus guides the strategy and by transparently presenting both eliminates wasteful and distracting conflicts of interests or priorities.

Additional Insight for Entrepreneurs:
The interview also mentions the human component to strategy, and makes the observation that becoming a strategist allows one to develop effective strategies. Professor Montgomery's students tend to be entrepreneurs and business owners, not so dissimilar to the students in ETR500. A secondary lesson here is for aspiring entrepreneurs and leaders to start thinking strategically at their current level, to start to see how the cogs and gears interconnect and iteratively build upon this strategic thinking until becoming strategists. Once one becomes a strategist then one can finally make worthwhile strategies.