🏕 Why Basecamp?
In Part 1 – Into Thin Air, we stepped into the fog—navigating paradoxes, fractured priorities, and the struggle to adapt at altitude. Part 2: Building Basecamp marks a strategic pause—not to rest, but to refocus. At this elevation, momentum alone isn’t enough. You need a foundation that strengthens your next moves.
Scene 4: The Distraction Trap – When everything matters, nothing finishes. Strategic focus requires courage—not just prioritization.
The Mountains Call
Setting: A clear, snow-dusted trail above the lodge, early morning. The storm has passed. The air is crisp, the path quiet. Arin, Jonathan, and Ravi walk a narrow ridgeline, intentionally away from the noise and bustle of Basecamp. The others—Mark and Sophia—are back at the lodge, tending to team logistics. This is a walk-and-talk, but also a test: what really matters now?
Ravi kicked a loose stone off the edge of the trail. “I’ve got one team member spread across four projects right now. She spends more than half her time just task switching—context juggling. Brilliant, but exhausted. And the kicker? None of the projects even align.”
Jonathan exhaled through his nose, not laughing but close. “That sounds familiar.”
Ravi kept going. “And I get it—we’ve been in exploratory mode. Try this, test that. But we’ve hit the wall. We’re so busy launching things, we forgot to land anything.”
Arin added, “Reminds me of a visit I made years ago to a West Coast IT exec. He looked exhausted and said, ‘We never seem to finish anything.’ I asked how many people he had—he said forty. Then I asked how many projects—he said forty-three. Nuff said.”
Jonathan chuckled.
“Work-in-progress insanity. Goldratt warned us.”
They reached a trail junction—one fork steep and well-worn, the other meandering, marked only by a thin wooden stake. Jonathan paused there, letting the silence do the work.
Arin gestured toward the unmarked path. “Most of us follow the one that’s clearer—not better. Strategic focus isn’t about control. It’s about courage. The courage to say, ‘not that path—not now.’”
Jonathan stepped to the marker. “Back when I led product at my last company, we tried to do five major launches in twelve months. We shipped three. None of them landed cleanly. Morale cratered. We thought more projects meant more progress. It meant more noise.”
Ravi nodded. “So how do we pick the right trail now?”
Jonathan looked up the ridge. “Strategic Focus isn’t only about what we pursue. It’s what we protect.” He turned to Arin.
“Steve Jobs said it best: ‘Focus is about saying no.’”
Arin crouched by the marker. “Then let’s make this a ritual. Every time we make a strategic bet, we also name what we won’t do. No more additions without subtractions.”
Arin remembered an old quote by Luke Hohmann: “When you want your boat to go fast, it is easier to cut anchors than add horsepower.”
She paused, then continued. “But there’s something deeper. Focus isn’t just about saying no. It’s about making sure that every team, every layer of this organization understands the why behind their work. That their mission is a living thread, woven from the strategy—not a slogan hung on the wall.”
Jonathan nodded slowly. “So we’re not just aligning priorities. We’re aligning capabilities to purpose. That’s where real adaptability shows up—not just choosing direction, but enabling teams to move in it.”
Ravi stepped closer to the trail split. “Then maybe strategic focus is the first layer of infrastructure. The thing you build before you build teams. Without it, we’re just scattering effort.”
A gust of wind lifted a few pine needles from the trail, clearing the dirt around the fork. Jonathan stared at it for a beat, then said:
“What would we stop doing—immediately—if we took strategy seriously as an act of courage?”
Arin stood.
“Let’s answer that tonight. But first—focus gives us the path. Next, we build the strength to walk it.”
Next on the Agenda
Scene 5: Beyond Performance – You can’t hire enough adaptability. You must build it—through capability, not credentials.
Scene 6: Adaptive Reflection – Reflection isn’t what happens after the climb. It’s how you decide whether to keep going.
My AI Assistant Byron (ChatGPT-4o with Canvas) helped with drafts, idea development, editing, and visual images. Perplexity AI assisted with research.