Staying Focused

I am coaching hockey with my brother, Peter, this year and really enjoying it. Peter is a very seasoned coach having coached many teams including being a paid High School Coach. I have plenty to learn. I asked him what the most important thing is to coach the kids. He said that it is keeping the "main thing" the main thing – staying focused.

In business today, it is hard to stay focused for three reasons:

1. We have so many things coming at us (information over load) that it is hard to stay focused. We are constantly being pushed to look at this product and that product.

2. The entire information technology industry is a moving target. The “main thing” may change. This makes staying focused on the “main thing” really hard!

3. Human desire to seek out new exciting things – bored with “the main thing”

If you are bored with what you are doing. Spice it up and suck it up. If you want to be great at anything you will have to do it over and over again. Is there anyone who does not think Tiger Woods is not tired of swinging a golf club? Look for ways to make it fun by turning everything into a game and seek small incremental improvements. Make it fun!

Re-evaluate the main thing and prioritize. Do not rush to add more and more things that will allow you to lose focus. If you think there is a fundamental change you may have to dramatically change your focus but you will still need to focus.

One of the key differentiators for Nortec is that we are entirely focused on IT infrastructure and primarily around Microsoft. There was a CIO panel at the Microsoft Partner briefing and everyone of the CIOs said they prefer partners that are focused and not one partner for all IT.

Stay focused and be the best of the best in your niche.

BTW – The main thing when coaching kid’s hockey is skills.