Last Tuesday night I was watching Charlie Rose’s interview with Dick Costolo. Mr. Costolo is the current CEO of Twitter and during the interview he said something that really struck a chord with me and I wanted to share it with you here today.
What Costolo said he that he spends a lot of time thinking about the balance between courage and focus at Twitter.
He went on to explain that by courage he meant “are we being as bold as we could be, are we taking chances and not just trying to protect what we have”. Focus is important because “we can’t do every new thing we want to do. We have to do few things and decide what we are not going to do and make sure we are concentrating our efforts”.
Costolo sited that he believe this balance is what companies like Amazon and Apple do so well. I think this lesson applies equally to small business owners. How do we make sure we are trying new things without falling into the trap of chasing every shiny object we see?
I think a big part of the answer to that question lies in the way Costolo described Amazon’s Jeff Bezos’ “maniacal focus on the customer”. Pushing yourself and your company to do new things but using your customer focus as a filter for selecting which projects to pursue seems like a great recipe for success to me.
How do you balance courage and focus in your business? Leave a comment below, I’d love to hear your thoughts.
