Here’s something I constantly see in owner-managed businesses, and it is costing those businesses months, if not years, in meaningful progress. The business owner is smart, the team is committed and capable, and there are plans in place, but whilst everybody is pushing, there is no progress.

I want to help you understand why this happens and one thing that you can do to fix it moving forward.

The Number One Reason Your Business Isn’t Moving Forward

In my experience of working with businesses that turn over between five and twenty million pounds, the number one reason those businesses don’t move forward at the rate that they need to — and don’t make the progress that they want, is that they are trying to do too many things at the same time.

That obvious fact is something that the business owner is often completely unaware of. The reason for that is because in anybody’s business, there’s always going to be a hundred different things that you want to fix and sort out. The trouble is that everything feels urgent and everything feels like it needs to happen.

The problem with that is that teams get stretched, people’s attention gets diluted, energy gets diluted, and everything is making slow progress. If this sounds familiar, you may also want to read about how focus is a superpower and what it can do for your business.

What Must Get Done Versus What Could Get Done

In order to make proper progress, you need to differentiate between what can be done, all of the things that you want to do, and what must be done. You need to ensure that you focus on the key things that will move your business forward, instead of everything.

I worked with a very successful business whose owner is one of the most intelligent, committed people that I’ve ever worked with. Before working with me, this business owner used to be very, very frustrated. He felt like he had all of the ideas and all of the opportunity, but nothing ever got over the line.

When I sat down with him and asked him to write out the list of all of the initiatives and projects that were on the go, the list came out to sixteen things. Every single one of those projects was stuck somewhere between forty and sixty per cent in progress, and every single month the dial moved ever so slightly. They crept forward. The reason was simple, you cannot make meaningful progress when your focus is spread that thin.

The One Thing That Made the Biggest Difference

The one thing that I got this business to do, and it was transformational, was to sit down as a management team and decide on just three things. They were only allowed three priorities for the quarter: the three that were going to make the most progress, make the biggest difference, and the things that must get done instead of all of the things that could get done.

This one thing helped this business make more progress in ninety days than they had made in twelve months before sitting down with me.

If you want better results, you need to stop diluting focus. You need to stop trying to do everything at the same time and focus on the things that must get done, because your team members have limited capacity, you have limited resources, and your number one job as the leader of your business is to provide clear direction to your team. That is what this did for this business, and it made a huge difference.

You can explore more practical business insights like this on Mind Your Own Business, the free series designed to help you build a better, faster, stronger business.

How to Set Your Three Priorities for the Next 90 Days

Step One: Choose Your Three

Sit down with your team and look at all of the different projects and initiatives that you are currently working on. From there, choose three.

Step Two: Set Specific Outcomes and Milestones

Look at those three priorities and set very specific outcomes for each of them over the next ninety days, along with specific milestones to keep you on track over the weeks to come.

Step Three: Stay Disciplined

That is the simple bit. The hard bit is going to be, once you have set out that plan and those milestones, keeping to the ninety-day plan, because in two or three weeks’ time you’re going to be tempted to add another project, another opportunity, or try and solve another problem. That is where things start to go wrong.

What starts off as three priorities can quickly end up as seven, eight, or nine priorities by the end of the quarter. And again, we’re back into the old trap of limited focus, limited progress, and frustration all around.

Be clear on what must get done, and then be disciplined enough, be brave enough, to stick to that until it is completed. If anybody else has any bright ideas, or if any other opportunities come up over the course of the quarter, list them to be considered for the next ninety days. That is the way that you will transform the results in your business. Stick to the things that will make the biggest difference and park everything else.

The Real Commercial Consequence of Trying to Do Too Much

There is a real commercial consequence to all of this that many business owners don’t consider. When your team members are trying to do too much, it takes so much longer for the results that you had originally intended to come through. The real issue with all of that is that you are paying your people and you are investing in these projects, and the payoff comes too late, or not at all in many cases.

This is a real commercial consequence of trying to take on too much. Being very clear on the few priorities that you must get over the line is what helps you get a better return on investment from these projects, and helps your business get better faster. For a deeper look at how implementation speed affects your results, read about implementation velocity and why it matters.

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