How much work completed by your organization is in direct support of your business? 

This may seem like a trivial question and most would probably respond swiftly with, "All of it!", but if you take the time to look closely you may be surprised at what you'll find.

I worked as a business consultant for a broadband media company several years ago.  Their business was technical in nature given the fact their mission was to develop and market solid state storage devices for use in the media industry.  Sounds cool, right?  Well, I have to admit, it was cool but the company was failing. 

Not because of a bad vision or poor product, but because they were side tracked. 

As the company grew so did their technology needs.  They quickly found themselves with the burden of networking multiple geographic locations, implementing enterprise collaboration tools, streamlining business processes and managing vendors.  This, as they would learn, can be a daunting task. 

It wasn't long before their mission changed from creating a best of breed suite of broadband media devices to being the best at managing internal operations and the supporting technology.

Even the best run organizations fall into a rabbit hole from time to time and lose focus on the big picture, but one of the safest ways to protect your business from falling victim to misdirection is to outsource.  There are hundreds if not thousands of companies that specialize in what you may be trying to accomplish on your own. 

Take advantage of those specialized skills outside your organization and keep your key contributors focused on the vision.

Keeping your internal message consistent and in line with the overall vision is critical to building brand, developing in-house expertise and ultimately growing your IP.  How would your employees answer the following question?  "What does our company do?"

Now, more importantly, ask yourself how your customers would answer the question if you asked them the following question.  What does my company do?"

Regretfully, most organizations will find that not only their message is skewed internally, but it is completely missed by their target markets.

 So, what can you do?  Through my experience, I've found you must first define your message.  You must understand clearly what it is the company is setting out to accomplish.  Then, formulate this vision into a single governing mission that can be shared by all.  Once you've got that, consistently evaluate your own organization and target markets to see if the message is clear.  If not, you more than likely have misaligned or misdirected priorities. 

Bring the attention of your key contributors back to the company mission and look to outsource those operational or infrastructure related activities.

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