3. When Everything Becomes a Priority
Most organizations try to do too many things at the same time and, instead of accelerating strategy execution, they slow it down. What are the typical situations and steps that lead to this? What consequences can it have, and how can it be prevented or reduced?
The Beginning... The Trap of "Not Choosing"
Every year, leadership teams gather, strategic presentations are delivered, and ambitious goals are set.
The domino effect often starts at the very moment the strategy is created, when the leadership team cannot narrow its focus, does not want to give up certain directions, and nobody wants to lose their own priorities.
Then the first quarter ends, and the slippage becomes visible. Small, completely logical steps lead to this point:
"This is important too."
"We can fit that in as well."
"We can't leave this out either."
"X.Y. said we have to do it."
And at some point, we realize that everything has become important. We can no longer decide what to do first or what could realistically fall off the table in a given situation. Everything remains important, everything gets added to the list, and focus is lost right from the start.
We all emphasize the importance of focus, yet in practice strategy often becomes a long to-do list of "critical" or "key" initiatives that contains everything:
• Growth • Digitalization • Customer experience • Efficiency • Innovation • People
All of these topics and tasks receive labels such as "critical," "important," or "top priority," and when everything is critical, nothing truly is.
If there is no distinction between what is genuinely important and what is less important, real decisions cannot be made.
If everything is important, then in reality nothing is, and the word priority loses its meaning.
When everything is important, the organization loses its ability to focus.
Attention, energy, and capacity become fragmented, and with that, strategy loses its guiding role while the word priority becomes meaningless.
If everything is a priority:
- nothing receives real precedence,
- nothing is protected,
- nothing truly comes to the forefront,
- more and more projects, initiatives, and tasks continue to appear.
The Complexity Trap
Every organization has a capacity limit. When initiatives, projects, and tasks exceed that limit, the need for coordination increases, decision-making slows down, and complexity grows.
- Recently, this was exactly the critical issue that surfaced in a leadership team I worked with. Every leader raised it. They said they simply could not keep going like this. Everything was a priority. What counted as a priority changed constantly. They could not maintain focus, they had no sense of achievement, and they did not feel they had accomplished or completed anything.
- Another senior leader I recently worked with asked for help because her team was nowhere near achieving their strategic goals. Business-as-usual activities, firefighting, and the constant flow of urgent priorities kept overriding strategic ones, leaving no room to make progress on them.
- A third leader who came to me for support was simply drowning in an endless stream of meetings and had no space left for deep, focused work.
More projects. More people. More stakeholders. More meetings.
⏩ As the number of participants increases, not only does the number of tasks grow, but the number of connections between people multiplies as well.
The growth of complexity does not simply mean more work. It creates an exponentially increasing collaboration burden.
A point is reached where the question is no longer how much work there is, but how much energy is consumed by coordination. More and more "let's discuss this," "let's align on that," and "we are waiting for input" appear in the system.
Every new priority brings not only a new task but also many new connection points:
- more cross-functional coordination,
- more dependencies,
- more approval rounds,
- more and more intensive information flows.
And eventually a turning point arrives when the team is moving slowly simply because there is too much alignment work. Coordination replaces actual work. Meetings, extra rounds, misunderstandings, and replanning consume the available time.
After a while, the organization spends most of its effort coordinating work. The number of meetings grows, decisions slow down, and increasing amounts of energy are spent figuring out who is doing what, when, and how.
The System Resets When It Can No Longer Carry More
The system cannot carry everything indefinitely.
At this point, there is no conscious strategic decision about what should continue. Instead, an automatic reaction takes over: whatever keeps the organization running survives.
Daily operations override strategic initiatives because operational issues require immediate attention. Operations and survival take precedence over everything else.
The solution is easy to say but difficult to do: from another perspective, strategy is often about saying no.
Which projects do we choose not to launch?
Which requests do we consciously decline?
Which directions do we decide not to pursue, even when they seem like good ideas on their own?
This is neither comfortable nor easy.
In the short term, it often feels like a loss.
In reality, this is what creates focus.
And focus is the only way to prevent complexity from taking control of the organization.
How Can We Create and Maintain Focus? What Helps Us Decide: YES, NO, LATER, NEVER?
An important starting point is that there is no single correct model. Every organization must tailor its own approach.
At the same time, there are several proven approaches that support the same objective from different perspectives: conscious choice and maintaining focus.
One useful framework is Roger Martin's Strategic Choice Cascade, which supports clear thinking through five interconnected questions. Combined with Jay Galbraith's STAR Model (Strategy–Structure–Processes–Rewards) and solution-focused questions, it becomes a highly practical tool.
The essence of this approach is that strategy is not a list of goals but a sequence of interconnected choices.
1. What is our desired future, our winning aspiration?
What is our dream, the preferred future we want to create?
What does success mean to us? What does it look like when we get there?
2. Where will we play?
For whom, where, and how do we want to create real value?
In which markets, customer segments, products, or services do we want to participate and, equally importantly, where do we not?
These choices already create focus and consciously exclude certain options. These decisions shape not only the structure but also the areas of focus.
3. How will we win?
How do we create value?
What makes us different?
What unique approach, strength, or advantage allows us to build competitive advantage?
4. What capabilities do we need?
This question is already about execution: what do we need to be truly good at in order for the strategy to work?
Which capabilities are already working well?
This goes beyond individual competencies. It also includes how work is organized and which processes support the way the organization operates.
5. What management systems support this?
Which decision-making mechanisms, metrics, processes, and incentives ensure that the strategy shows up in everyday operations?
The strength of this approach lies in its ability to eliminate unnecessary initiatives and directions and clarify focus.It creates greater clarity within the system and makes it possible for the organization not only to operate, but to make real progress.
The questions build on each other and force choices.They do not allow everything to fit in.They do not allow everything to be equally important.This logic strengthens focus, and focus is one of the keys to managing complexity.
When Focus Is Not Entirely Up to You – In Matrix and Global Organizations
There is a special situation where focus is not exclusively determined by the local leadership team.
In matrix or global organizations, a significant portion of priorities comes from outside:
- global projects,
- regional initiatives,
- central campaigns and initiatives,
- new expectations.
These often compete with one another, overlap in timing, and do not always take local capacity into account.
In such situations, the classic advice to "just say no" does not work so easily.
Typical situations:
"We have to do this because it is a global priority."
"This is critical at the regional level."
"This came from HQ. We cannot let it go."
Continuous overlaps in priorities.
Constant reprioritization.
Meanwhile, the local strategy is pushed into the background, teams switch into reactive mode, and the sense of control disappears.
This is one of the most frustrating ways of working:
you have responsibility, but not full influence.
What is actually happening?
Focus is not lost because there is no strategy.
Focus is lost because too many strategies exist simultaneously at different levels.
What Could Be the Solution? Two Situations, Two Approaches
It is important to distinguish between two fundamentally different situations.
When the organization (or leadership team) truly controls priorities
The key to focus is conscious choice and the ability to say no.
When a significant part of the priorities comes from outside
Focus does not come from full control but from how you manage what arrives.
Focus Test and a Solution-Focused First Step for Those Who Have Control
🎯 Focus Test
❓ Which three initiatives or strategic directions would create visible progress over the next three months if you truly focused on them?
❓ What could you stop right now that would immediately free up more attention and energy?
If there are no clear answers, too many things have become important.
➡️ What can you do? A possible first step
Identify 2–3 directions or goals that you consciously decide not to launch or choose to stop so that the selected priorities can receive genuine focus.
Focus Test and a Solution-Focused First Step for Those Who Have Limited or No Control
Here the solution is not classic elimination but conscious framing and translation.
🎯 Focus Test
Ask every member of the leadership team to answer these questions individually:
❓ Where do global priorities conflict with one another in your local context?
❓ Where do you feel incoming expectations already exceed your real capacity?
❓ Which priorities are clear, and which are interpreted differently by different teams?
➡️ What can you do? Possible first steps
Translate global priorities into local focus.
Which global priorities support your local goals most strongly, and which support them less?
Make capacity and possible trade-offs visible.
Be precise about what you currently have the real capacity to do.
Whenever a new priority or task appears, ask:
If we take this on, what do we need to consciously deprioritize?
Think in layers of priority:
What must be done and executed, and where do we still have room to maneuver?
1️⃣ Global mandatory priorities (compliance / global must-have)
Which 2–3 areas do you want to move forward under all circumstances?
2️⃣ Local strategic priorities
The priorities you are committed to maintaining.
3️⃣ Optional priorities
Which initiatives cannot be a focus right now but could be brought back later?
Agree on the key challenges you want to change and the priorities you want to escalate back to the global organization.
In matrix and global environments, focus does not come from complete control.
It comes from filtering, prioritizing, making boundaries visible, and making conscious choices even when not every decision is yours to make.