And what can you not?
In a recent chat with a good friend of mine, we discussed the fantastic book “Good to Great” by Jim Collins. The key focus for us was assessing what you’re great at, and what you’re merely good at.
We took some time to each go through areas of our businesses, asking each other where we believed we could truly be “best in the world”.
At first, my desire was to say "yes" to multiple suggestions – "sure, yeah we can be the best in the world at that!", and "yeah, we can be the best in the world at that too!"
But you can't be the best in the world at many things* – and the more "things" you try to be the best in the world at, the lower your chances of being best at any of them.
To build a world-class, truly successful business, choose what you want to be the best in the world at. And stop spreading your energy thinly across the stuff you're merely "good" at.
* We focused primarily on features and product areas when discussing what we were great or not great at. On reflection, I think it'd be more useful to focus on the customer-focused solutions and use cases – or the "jobs" your product is hired for – than the features themselves here. Focusing too much on a specific feature can lead you down a narrow and dangerous path and ignore the true requirements and desires of the customer.