CEOs can maintain focus by co-creating a simple one-page strategy with their board. When board members later propose off-strategy ideas, this document becomes a powerful tool to re-center the conversation and ask whether the new idea is important enough to displace an agreed-upon priority.
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Combat strategic complexity by creating a one-page plan. This document connects your highest-level vision and values to tactical quarterly goals in a clear cascade (Vision -> Strategy/KPIs -> Annual Goals -> Quarterly Goals). This simple, accessible artifact ensures universal alignment and clarity on how individual work ladders up.
Entrepreneurs often have enough new ideas to kill their focus. A tactical solution is maintaining a dedicated document to fully flesh out every new idea as it arises. This process satisfies the creative urge and provides emotional distance, allowing for more objective evaluation later without disrupting current priorities.
If a team is constantly struggling with prioritization, the root cause isn't poor task management; it's the absence of a clear, unifying strategy. A strong, insight-based strategy makes prioritization implicit, naturally aligning the organization and reducing distractions.
Merely protecting a team from external requests is an insufficient leadership tactic. True protection comes from creating and evangelizing a unifying strategy that aligns the entire organization, which naturally prevents distractions and conflicting priorities.
The most effective strategist is not the one who creates the most comprehensive plan, but the one who can distill that complexity into a simple, executable essence. A 200-page strategy is worthless if the cross-functional team cannot easily understand and act on it. True strategic work is in simplification.
Go beyond visual roadmaps. Create a monthly written document for executives that explains *why* the roadmap changed, details priorities, and includes data from recent launches. This forces intentionality, builds trust, and fosters deeper, more accountable conversations with leadership.
Organizations suffer from an excess of priorities, a modern phenomenon since the word was originally singular. To restore focus, use the "hell yes" test: if a new initiative doesn't elicit an enthusiastic "hell yes" from stakeholders, it's not a true priority and should be dropped or postponed.
Wikipedia's simple purpose—"a free encyclopedia"—served as a powerful tool to reject tempting but distracting ideas, like creating a webmail service. This shows that a well-defined mission isn't just for branding but is a critical internal guide for strategic decision-making and resource allocation, preventing strategic drift.
Truly effective strategic clarity involves translating the complex PE investment thesis into a simple "strategy on a page." The best CEOs communicate this relentlessly until every employee, regardless of role, understands the company's vision and their specific contribution to it.
CPC separates board meetings into two sessions: a virtual one for reviewing past results with functional leaders, and a subsequent in-person meeting for forward-looking strategy with the CEO. This structure prevents the common trap of getting bogged down in past performance when strategic, future-focused discussion is needed.
