Editor's note: Be sure to read the first article in this series, "Why every CEO needs an executive coach."

As the story goes, Bill Gates first met Warren Buffett at a dinner hosted by Gates' mother. During the meal, she asked everyone around the table to identify what they believed was the single most important factor in their personal success. Gates and Buffett both gave the same one-word answer: "focus." Their answer should not come as a surprise. After all, most successful CEOs and entrepreneurs attribute their success to a dedicated — some would say fanatical — commitment to achieving their goals. No interruptions. No sidetracking. No juggling multiple balls in the air. Just focusing in and doing those things critical to success.

Today's scarcest resource

On the surface, it sounds easy: Focus on those things that are most important and leave the rest to others. Yet the world we live in constantly pulls us away from our appointed tasks by bombarding us with sensory interruptions. Sources of distraction range from emails and online advertising to television, radio, magazines, smartphones, social media, and more. Add to this the constant interruptions from friends, family and business associates and it's easy to see why being able to focus has become such a challenge. It's a new rule of physics: Distractions increase at the rate necessary to fill the time allocated to address them.

Also read: Meeting with the C-Suite: Don't mention health insurance

For a CEO, the challenge is even more pronounced. In addition to the common distractions of everyday life, CEOs are expected to make daily decisions about legal matters, financial reports, marketing data, competitive analyses, sales statistics, and a host of other information constantly vying for their precious attention. Rather than allowing the CEO to focus on a select number of critical areas, company employees, customers, business partners, investors and other stakeholders draw them into endless meetings and discussions. Most CEOs give in to these requests, believing them to be germane to the strategic nature of their role. But they rarely are.

Consumed by multitasking

A busy mind is an unsettled mind. Rather than insight, a busy mind leads to confusion, hesitation and a lack of confidence, all of which can negatively impact the decision-making process. Focus on everything and you focus on nothing.

Given the importance of focus, it's disheartening to find that like most of us, many of today's business leaders and CEOs have fallen victim to the myth of multitasking: The more jobs they take on, the more goals they set, the more meetings they attend, the more chances they will have to succeed. Instead, the C-suite's infatuation with multitasking has brought senior executives to the point where when they are able to focus, they focus on the wrong things, addressing only the latest-and-loudest item in the inbox instead of something strategic and long-range.

In a study from the University of California-Irvine, researchers analyzed business productivity. Here's what study lead Gloria Mark told Fast Company about on-the-job interruptions: "When you have to completely shift your thinking, it takes time to move into the new area of focus, then more time to get back to what you were originally working on. We found about 82 percent of all interrupted work is resumed on the same day. But here's the bad news: It takes an average of 23 minutes and 15 seconds to get back to the original task."

Jonathan Spira, author of "Overload! How Too Much Information Is Hazardous to Your Organization," estimates that interruptions and information overload eat up 28 billion wasted hours a year, at a loss of almost $1 trillion to the U.S. economy. He goes on to say that because of unnecessary, unwanted, and completely unproductive interruptions, between 40 percent and 60 percent of our time is completely wasted. For the CEO, a lack of focus not only translates into wasted time, but an inability to positively impact those key areas that are critical to a company's success. How many good strategic decisions were left undone three years ago because a CEO's focus was anywhere but where it should have been?

Too many choices with too many variables

Good leaders make good decisions. And one of the most important decisions today's CEOs can make is where to focus their efforts. The problem is that like a consumer walking down a retail aisle filled with hundreds of products, a CEO is also faced with numerous choices. Should the CEO focus on finance or on the competition? Is it more important to meet with the company's business partners or with its employees? What activities should CEOs pull within their orbit and what activities should they delegate?

A survey by Waitrose & Partners found that 64 percent of consumers feel overwhelmed by choice. CEOs have similar feelings. According to the Harvard Business Review, a 10-year study of more than 2,700 leaders revealed that 57 percent of newly appointed executives felt that the decisions they were now asked to make were far more complicated and difficult than they had expected. Faced with an abundance of variables and possible outcomes, CEOs will usually opt to eliminate uncertainty by spreading their efforts across all possible areas of their organization. The result is a lack of focus that can prove debilitating for the CEO and harmful to the company.

Focus on three areas

The mistake that many CEOs make is believing that prior experience is a predictor of future success. This is especially true of individuals who came up through either finance or sales. While it's true that both are important, neither in itself will have a cross-functional impact on the entire company. Both areas will also have seasoned executives who are fully competent of assuming the chair previously occupied by the CEO.

CEOs need to recognize that they need not be firefighters, ready and willing to rush to every crisis or confrontation. Playing the role of firehouse Dalmatian, sitting by and watching the action unfold, is no solution, either. Better to act as the fire chief, monitoring the situation — no matter how potentially incendiary — and only stepping in when the efforts of others fail to produce the desired results.

Where should CEOs focus their attention? On those select areas where their unique skills, experience, reputation and authority can have the most impact on both the short- and long-term success or their company. Each should be an area that will positively affect all parts of the organization, not simply silos. It's only the CEO who has the perspective to see all the moving parts of the business, so the ability to focus becomes a superpower.

For every company in every industry, three areas are critical: Your people. Your culture. Your numbers. Each is intrinsically connected to the others. Taken together, they act as the foundation upon which your company will build and maintain its success.

One pushback I usually get when discussing CEO focus is this: "Isn't financial performance more important than any other area, and therefore the one place where CEOs need to focus intently? After all, without strong margins, positive cash flow, and a robust line of credit, most companies are doomed to failure. Why place your attention elsewhere when the financials matter most?"

While positive financials are critical to a company's ongoing success, it's important to understand that financials are an outcome, not a driver. By that I mean that positive financial performance occurs only when positive activity occurs in other areas of your organization. For example, your financial performance will certainly suffer if you have bad products, or poor customer service, or sub-par processes. These, in turn, are dependent on two key areas over which the CEO has unmatched influence: your people and your culture.

How can you ever hope to produce good customer experience from a culture that does not embrace people? Or achieve superior customer service with employees who do not share your goals? Yes, key performance indicators (KPIs) are essential. Without them, you are driving blind through a sandstorm. But unless those KPIs are shared with your employees and reflective of your company's beliefs and values, they are simply numbers that are easily ignored.

Great leadership requires balance

In 2009, James Zenger surveyed over 60,000 employees to discover which characteristics made leaders great. Who were more successful: results-focused executives who zeroed-in on the bottom line, or executives who concentrated on enhancing the company's culture as well as the skills and happiness of its employees? Business leaders who were able to focus equally on the financials and the company culture (less than 1 percent according to another study) produced superior results 72 percent of the time.

These findings are supported by more recent research from the recruiting firm Glassdoor, which found that the most successful CEOs are those who surround themselves with committed employees and strong leadership teams. In fact, the best predictor of a high CEO approval rating is the strength of the management team. A company's culture and values are also a key consideration of employees ranking their CEO. Employees also rate the CEO more favorably when the company has solid financials.

Always remember, the successful CEO is one who delegates. But never forget that you should never delegate, defer, pass off, or ignore those three things that matter most: your people, your culture and your numbers. So, clear your mind, set your goals and then develop a laser-like focus on these three areas. When you do, you will be taking the first step toward lasting success.

By Trey Taylor:

Trey is the Chief Executive Officer of Taylor Insurance Services, Managing Director of trinity | blue, an executive coaching consultancy, and the Founding Partner of Ascend Partners, an equity investment vehicle focused on the Employee Benefits space.

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