As a young Marine officer I served in an artillery battalion, and I remember my first meeting with one of the battalion commanders, Lt. Col. Smith. An outstanding Marine, he sat all of his officers in the base chapel and told us to "keep the focus on the impact area". By this he meant other issues were unimportant if we did not accomplish our mission of putting artillery rounds on time and on target. This message on the importance of focus and clarity stuck with me, especially as I have learned that so doing is not easy.
1. Definition. The first difficult objective is clearly understanding what your company does. This requires some work, both to avoid fuzziness and also to ensure your employees also understand this. While the business literature may suggest otherwise I believe this is especially true with smaller firms like mine; we changed and adapted so frequently at first (as you have seen from my other posts) that our definition of who we are also evolved. The time you spend on this is obviously not billable and therefore easy to avoid--don't fall into this trap.
2. Judgment. Balancing your vision with competing priorities is not as simple as reciting the mantra to yourself on the way to work each morning. Other priorities will come up that cannot be ignored; for example the financials need to be completed on schedule each quarter. Judgment is the key to actually living your vision, and by judgment I mean looking at every action through the prism of your vision. For example, you know the financials are part of running the business that carries out your vision while at the same time understanding they are not an end in themselves. In my experience you have this judgment or you don't--it is just that simple. Be honest with yourself and your employees on this.
