From Lego to McKinsey, distracted managing can kill companies

IF THE best management minds agree on anything, it is the importance of corporate focus. Peter Drucker repeatedly argued that deciding what not to do is as important as deciding what to do. Apple CEO Tim Cook once said that “we believe in the simple, not the complex. We believe in saying no to thousands of projects so that we can focus on the few”. Tom Peters, who recently announced his retirement from writing after decades searching for excellence, advised companies to “stick to their knitting”.

At an executive breakfast held on May 9 at the Ivy Club in Covent Garden by the Global Peter Drucker Forum and featuring management thinkers as well as former and current executives, the most popular answers to the question of what ails the corporate world were “lack of focus” or excessive complexity.

Lack of focus not only diverts companies from providing their core products and services, it also contributes to managerial overload and complexity. People who have nothing to do with the company’s core business build empires. CEOs are distracted by an expanding list of demands on their time. What was once transparent becomes opaque, and what was once straightforward becomes labyrinthine.