Fifteen keys to a long-term focus:
1. A focus is simple. When Charles Kettering ran the General Motors Research Laboratory in Dayton, Ohio, he had a plaque put on the wall that said: "This problem when solved will be simple." Nothing is more helpful in recognizing a good corporate focus than asking yourself this question: "Is the proposed focus simple?"

2. A focus is memorable. You can't make yourself or your company successful. Only your customers can do that for you. Since a focus has to work in the mind of the customer, it has to be memorable. If your customers can't remember what you stand for, what good does it do to take that stand?

3. A focus is powerful. The more often a word or concept is repeated, the more powerful it becomes. By establishing a focus for your corporation, you create an environment in which the focus gets repeated over and over again. In the process, the focus increase its power.

4. A focus is revolutionary. If you're thinking of developing a focus for your company, keep in mind that you're going to meet with resistance. A focus is a simple, easy-to-understand concept that is going to be difficult to sell to your associates. A focus goes against the grain of conventional thinking.

5. A focus needs an enemy. Unrestricted growth in many different directions robs a company of an essential element for its long-term success: a viable enemy. Business is competition. Any product or service sold by your company is a product or service not sold by somebody else. It is not enough just to remain profitable. For you to be truly successful, others must fail.

6. A focus is the future. It bears repeating that the primary job of a corporate leader is not to manage the corporation but to find the future. Not just the future in general but the specific future for the corporation under his or her care. A focus is the future in the sense that it makes a prediction about where the future lies and then takes specific steps to make that future happen.

7. A focus is internal as much as external. While the Focus book has primarily discussed strategies for developing an external focus, the focus needs to be turned around and applied internally as well. When you have a focus, you know what people to hire, what research to conduct, what products to introduce.

8. A focus is what the country needs. What's good for a company is also good for a country. Commentators complain every time an industry decides to pull up stakes and move to a foreign country. The latest is the television set, a product no longer made in America. Why should everything we buy be manufactured in the United States? Wouldn't it make sense for countries to specialize? Wouldn't it make sense for each country to make only those products it had an affinity for? Wouldn't it make sense for every country to have a focus?

9. A focus is not a product. The 914 copier was the most profitable single product ever produced by any American company. Yet Xerox was not focused on copiers. Xerox was focused on the "plain-paper" attribute of the 914 copier. Plain paper was the flag that led Xerox to its business success.

10. A focus is not an umbrella. Some companies think they have a found a focus when they have established a uniform theme to hang on all their products. Years ago, AT&T chief executive Robert Allen said: "AT&T is fundamentally a networking company. We bring people, information, and services together, all in the name of time-based competitive advantage." That probably surprised most of AT&T's customers who considered the company to be fundamentally a supplier of long-distance telephone service.

11. A focus does not appeal to everyone. No one product or service can appeal to everybody. There are always people who want to be different, who want to choose something that the majority does not want. This is true in clothing, in hair styles, in lifestyles, in products, in services.

12. A focus is not hard to find. A large organization with more than twenty thousand employees decided to search for a focus. As the first step, a committee with more than a dozen members was appointed with instructions to report back to the chief executive after they had developed the new strategy. A focus is not hard to find, but it was certain to get lost in the crowd. A committee by definition can't find a simple idea. A committee can only build something complex. (The larger the committee, the longer it takes and the more complex the report).

13. A focus is not instantly successful. In the short term, narrowing the focus will cost you business. Fewer people will want to buy your product or service. Or you might lose sales by dropping products or services. A powerful focus is almost never effective in the short run. If this were not true, then every company would be enormously successful. All they would need to do is to try a number of different approaches. If it works, keep doing it; if it doesn't work, try something else.

14. A focus is not a strategy. General Motors had a strategy. They wanted to become a full-line transportation company. Hence the acquisition of Hughes Aircraft. A strategy, as defined by most companies, doesn't put much restraint on their activities. At GM, for example, anything that flies, rolls, or slides would fit into a transportation strategy. A focus implies a "narrowing" of the business with the intent to dominate a segment. There's power when you can "own" a market. There's no power when you are a bit player.

15. A focus is not forever. Sooner or later even the most powerful focus becomes obsolete. That's when a company must refocus itself. On the other hand, a focus is not a fashion that ought to be changed every few years. The time frame is more like decades rather than years. Then, too, it depends on the industry. Rapidly changing high-technology industries will wear out a focus much faster than low-technology industries will.