When your team has many plans but little focus, execution slows, morale dips, and “top priority” starts meaning nothing. In this article, Jef Menguin shows the real reason planning season fails: every department pushes its own plan, and nobody protects the few bets that matter. Use the shift and share it at work so your leaders say no faster, align sooner, and move as one team.
Let me share another scene from real life.
A CEO shows me her wall of plans.
On one side, she has the company’s three-year strategic plan. On another, she has a rollout plan for “digital transformation.” Her HR head has a leadership roadmap. The sales director has a growth plan. Operations has an efficiency plan. Customer experience has a journey map.
None of these are fake work. All of them came from serious meetings with serious people.
But then she leans back and says, “We have so many plans. Why do we still feel scattered?”
She is not confused about effort. She is confused about focus.
If you’ve ever felt the same, this article is for you.
Why the Old Way Creates Busyness, Not Focus
Let me zoom out again.
We were taught that more plans show more control.
So we ask every department to submit a strategic plan. We cascade goals down the organization. We tell managers to align their plans with corporate objectives. On paper, it looks tidy. Everyone has something to show.
But here is what often happens after the planning season.
HR pushes for their programs. Sales pushes for their targets. Operations pushes for efficiency. Customer experience pushes for new projects. Each plan makes sense on its own. Together, they pull people in many directions.
You can feel it in your week.
You enter meetings where every item is “top priority.” You see teams juggling multiple projects “because they’re all important.” You feel energy, but not always progress.
If this old way worked, your people would feel lighter and clearer as you add more plans. Instead, they feel heavier. They struggle to see what really matters.
Before we move on, ask yourself quietly: “When my managers say ‘our priorities,’ do they mean three or four things they can name? Or are they really pointing to a long list that keeps growing?”
Your answer will tell you a lot.
Focus Comes From Tradeoffs, Not More Priorities
So what needs to shift?
You don’t get focus by adding priorities. You get focus by making tradeoffs.
Focus is not the result of more planning. Focus is the result of choosing.
When you ask every team to add their own “strategic initiatives,” you grow the list. You don’t automatically grow focus. Focus only appears when leaders say, “We will do this, not that. We will serve these customers first. We will protect this offer and release that one.”
That means something uncomfortable: there are good ideas you will not pursue. There are legacy projects you will close. There are habits you will no longer reward.
The old way tries to keep almost everything and still be focused. The new way accepts that real focus always costs something.
The Spotlight and the Floodlight
Think of focus like light.
A floodlight lights up everything. The whole area is visible, but nothing stands out. A spotlight, on the other hand, picks one part of the stage. It makes that part bright so your eyes know where to look.
Many organizations call themselves “focused” but behave like a floodlight.
They point at many markets, many products, many internal projects. They say, “We must do all of this. We can’t drop anything.” The result is soft light everywhere and sharp light nowhere.
Real focus feels different.
You still have many tasks, but there are a few clear beams. Your people know, “This is where we must shine.” They know which customers come first. They know which initiatives are non-negotiable and which ones can wait.
Planning without tradeoffs gives you a floodlight. Planning with tradeoffs gives you a spotlight.
Where All These Plans Come From
You might be wondering, “How did we end up with so many plans in the first place?”
It usually happens slowly, and with good intentions.
One year, you create a company strategic plan. The following year, you ask each department to support it with their own plan. A few months later, someone launches a transformation project, so that gets a plan. Then you add a customer experience plan, a people plan, a digital plan.
Each step makes sense. Each plan has a sponsor. Each sponsor wants budget and attention. No one wants to say no, especially to something labeled “strategic.”
Soon, you have a wall of plans.
But if you look closely, you will see overlap. You will see projects that exist only because no one dared to end them. You will see areas where different plans pull the same people in different directions.
You don’t have a “focus problem” because your people are weak. You have a focus problem because the system keeps adding and almost never subtracts.
How Clear Strategy Changes the Picture
This is where strategy comes back in.
In the first article, Strategy First, Plan Second, I said:
Strategy decides the game. The plan organizes the work.
When you have not clearly decided the game, every plan fights for space. HR wants a bigger slice. Sales wants a bigger slice. Operations wants a bigger slice. Everyone is trying to help. Everyone is also competing without saying it.
But when you decide the game first, something important happens.
Let’s say your strategy is to win by becoming the most trusted partner for mid-sized companies in one region, offering faster and more flexible solutions than any competitor.
Now every plan has to answer one honest question: “Does this help us win that game?”
Leadership development now focuses on skills that build trust and speed. Culture work now supports behaviors that solve problems faster for clients. Sales plans now prioritize mid-sized companies in that region instead of chasing every possible customer.
You still have plans. But they are now organized around one way of winning.
Clarity in strategy makes it easier to say no. And saying no is what creates focus.
From Long Lists to Few Strong Moves
So how do you move from many plans to a few strong moves?
This is where your strategy work must include real tradeoffs.
In Playing to Win, I help leadership teams answer five big questions about why they want to win, where they will play, and how they will win in a way that makes them the only real choice for the right customers. Your answers are choices. They are not statements for the wall.
Once those choices are clear, we move into Game Plan. This is where we turn long lists into short, strong plays.
Instead of twenty “strategic priorities,” you might end up with three clear plays. Under those plays, many tasks still happen. But your leaders and managers can point to the few moves that matter most.
Then in Strategy Rhythm, you review those plays every quarter. You ask which ones are working, which ones are stuck, which ones need more fuel, and which ones you must quietly retire.
You’re not chasing everything. You’re sharpening the few.
A Simple Experiment to Expose the Noise
Let me offer a small experiment you can try with your team.
At your next leadership meeting, ask each member of your ExCom or senior group to list, on paper, what they believe are the “top priorities” for the organization in the next twelve months.
Limit them to five.
When they’re done, ask them to circle their top three. Then ask them to read their lists out loud.
Listen to what you hear.
Do the lists match? Are there fifteen or twenty different “top priorities” in the room? Do some items sound like everyday responsibilities rather than true strategic moves?
You don’t need to fix everything in that meeting. You just need to ask one more question:
“What does this tell us about our focus?”
That one question can open a better conversation than another round of slide presentations.
Three Simple Tools to Help You Focus
To support this shift, you can give your leaders a few simple tools.
You can create a one-page Focus Map. On it, you ask, “What are our three key plays for the next twelve months?” Under each play, you list only the projects that directly support it. Everything else either becomes business-as-usual or gets challenged.
You can use a Stop-Doing List during planning. For every new project you add, you also ask, “What will we stop doing or pause so this can succeed?” Write those stop items down. Review them. Approve them. Make them visible.
You can test a Quarterly Focus Card for each leader. One card. Three focus areas. Concrete actions. Simple check-ins. Every quarter, they renew it based on the strategy and the game plan, not based on whatever noise appears.
None of these tools are complex. They just make tradeoffs visible.
When Plans Become Lighter and Work Becomes Clearer
So where does this lead you?
When you start making real tradeoffs, something interesting happens. Your strategic plan becomes slimmer, and your weekly work becomes clearer. You stop pretending that ten priorities are all “number one.” You stop approving projects just because they sound impressive. You start acting like every choice has a cost.
And your people feel it.
They stop saying, “We’re doing everything.” They start saying, “We’re doing these few things very well.”
If you want to see the difference between strategy and plan more deeply, you can return to the first article, Strategy First, Plan Second. Together, these two ideas belong to the same movement: decide the game, then choose the few moves that truly matter.
When You’re Ready to Go Deeper
You can start this shift with one meeting, one list, and one hard conversation.
But if you want help turning many plans into a few powerful plays, that’s where I can serve you best.
My work as a strategy consultant is to help leaders make wise choices. Through the Playing to Win Strategy Experience, we clarify the game you want to play and how you will win it. With Game Plan, we turn that into a focused set of moves everyone can understand. With Strategy Rhythm, we review those moves every quarter so you keep your focus, even when the world changes.
The goal is not to create more plans. The goal is to help you and your team stop scattering effort and start concentrating it where it truly counts.
So before you approve another “must-do” initiative, you might want to pause and ask:
Are we adding another plan to the pile—or are we finally ready to choose what we will stop, so our best work can shine?
If you’re building a business and you are playing to win…
Let’s install one shift that moves metrics.
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