I was recently working with a leadership team whose company had built a strong position in Colorado. The business was growing, the market was attractive, and there was still plenty of room to expand within the state. Two members of the senior team suggested that they should begin looking at Wyoming as well. There was no compelling evidence that Wyoming offered a better opportunity. Their thinking was that there might be additional growth across the border.
My advice was straightforward.
You are sitting on a gold mine. Why go looking for a silver mine? They already had substantial room to grow in a market they understood well, with a proven ability to succeed. Expanding into another state would require additional time and resources without any clear evidence that it offered a better return.
I’ve watched many companies make this mistake. They become so focused on growth that they begin chasing opportunities that are not really there. Some set aggressive targets around ideas such as BHAGs or the desire to 10x the business and then start looking everywhere for the revenue required to reach them. Ambition can be useful, but growth by itself is not a strategy.
Strategy is the allocation of scarce resources.
Every organization has limits on people, time, money, and leadership attention. That creates an important distinction between an opportunity and a priority. A company may have many legitimate possibilities in front of it, but only a small number should receive significant investment at any given time.
I am working with another organization that has a long list of initiatives it could pursue, and many of them are good ideas. The problem is that they do not have enough people or time to execute all of them well. A few stand out because they have much greater potential impact and fit closely with areas where the organization already has strong capability. My counsel has been to concentrate there first, get those priorities working well, and then reconsider the others as capacity becomes available.
The strongest organizations concentrate their effort in areas customers value highly and where proven capabilities can create meaningful differentiation.
That concentration also creates momentum. As people spend more time working in the same critical areas, they deepen their expertise and the quality of the work improves. Over time, that accumulated learning becomes increasingly difficult for competitors to match.
Leaders should remain alert to changes in the market and willing to consider something new when there is strong evidence that it fits the strategy and deserves investment.
At the same time, every new initiative consumes something. It can pull people away from other work, absorb management attention, and require additional capital. Those costs are easy to underestimate because new ideas are usually presented in terms of the results they might generate. Leaders need to decide whether an opportunity justifies what the organization will have to commit to pursue it.
A senior leadership team should ask: Where can continued improvement create stronger differentiation? Which priorities offer the highest return on effort? What are we pursuing because it is genuinely important, and what are we pursuing because it is available or interesting?
Many years ago, IBM asked me to speak to about a thousand of its top managers and executives on the essence of excellence.
To prepare, I spoke with CEOs, distinguished university professors, and several of the business thinkers I respected most, then combined their perspectives with my own experience. I eventually reduced it to three letters: FDA. The F stands for focus, choosing a clear strategy in an area where the organization has a strong chance to succeed. The D is discipline, staying intensely focused on that strategy unless the market gives you a compelling reason to change. The A represents action, because the amount of action you take determines the results you will get. To be successful, an organization must maintain intense focus, exercise strong discipline, and take massive action. The best leaders protect that focus by saying no to even good opportunities that would pull the organization away from the strategy it has chosen.
Organizations are expecting more from the people they bring in to speak.
A strong keynote still matters. But leaders are also looking for practical tools, planning support, useful takeaways, and someone who understands the pressure behind the event.
John Spence was named the 2026 Thinkers360 Thought Leader of the Year. He does not just walk on stage, deliver a keynote, and leave. He works with you as a trusted partner from the first planning conversation through the final follow-up.
