Power of 3 - for focus and results

One large company I worked with was struggling to deal with too many initiatives, too many business lines and markets, too many metrics for measurement and hence too much complexity. 

Newly appointed CEO (who earlier was CXO on the same Company) decided to change this. He knew this Company inside out.

He urged his team - there should (max) 3 priority initiatives, 3 business lines/markets to focus on and 3 critical metrics to be tracked.  

Everything else was either a next level of detail or a distraction.

Over time, this kind of simplification and focus tremendously helped the team to focus on critical things that mattered. It also helped in Company turnaround in a couple of years. 

Also at another highly successful Company, we internally killed many initiatives, existed markets and encouraged colleagues not to get distracted away from the core. 

Amazon founder used to highlight the same. He would like senior leaders to focus only up to 3 strategic matters in a day.

When Apple Founder gave his commencement speech at Stanford, he only included 3 stories. When he used to highlight to product features during MAC or iPhone launches, he would prefer to highlight 3 features only even though many more existed. 

Even Oracle Omaha says, if you make very few good investments (he said 5 if I am not wrong) in life, that is enough. Rest can be a distraction.

Compared to this, there so many executives who are so interested in a long list of priorities and to-do lists. It is hard to even know what exactly is going on in the Company.

Have been implementing the rule of 3 priorities/important tasks/focus areas leveraging minimalism, elimination, and delegation. And already noticing the positive impact.

About the author - Mahesh Dumbre is an ex Tata Group executive who enjoys building businesses and careers while working with corporates, startups and professionals as well as investing, teaching and writing.