How can I manage/teach or help my startup team understand the value of focusing on one thing and doing it better than anyone else?

To do so, Just follow the following Tips for Successful Innovation Teams:

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1. The first step in building the innovation team is selecting the right people.

The best way to start is by understanding the actual work the team will do and then optimizing the personnel around these key activities. Commonly included in the work of an innovation team is a creative phase to generate new business ideas, an analytical phase to understand their business potential and a development phase to refine the most promising ideas and then test them in the market. With these activities in mind, assembling a group of people only capable of thinking “outside the box” clearly won’t be sufficient for success, as the generation of the idea is only one part of the process. We believe that a better staffing goal is to bring together a team that has the “biggest box” possible.

2. Select your team for who they know as well as what they know.

While innovation teams usually network fairly instinctively, we believe that the quality of professional networks should be an explicit selection criteria when staffing decisions are made. In fact, modern tools haveallowed mapping networks to become a much easier task.

3. Pick one leader and provide him or her the autonomy they need to be successful.

Because so much has been written about the concept of creative leadership, we instead chose to focus on how to set up the given leader for success in their role.

4. Build a team that can both identify gaps in the market and markets in the gap!

We all know that a good business idea usually fills a gap in the market – the idea addresses some sort of unmet need for which there is no other solution currently available. That is an important start but it isn’t enough to be considered true innovation

5. Find team members who tell great stories!

The ability to communicate the new business idea is almost as important as the quality of the idea itself. Whether you are presenting to your boss, your colleagues or to a panel of Venture Capitalists, it is absolutely vital that they come away with a clear understanding of the concept’s value proposition, and a shared enthusiasm tomake it successful. A good storyteller can help make this a reality.

6. Understand the difference between good and bad conflict.

While we strongly believe that a diverse innovation team will achieve the best results, there is no doubt that bringing together such a wide variety of people who have different roles, thinking preferences and perspectives will lead to some interpersonal friction. These differences can lead to discomfort and even conflict, so careful attention to the team’s working processes is a vital responsibility for the team.

7. Remember to set goals and measure progress.

Some innovation teams neglect to set goals at the start of a project because the range of possible outcomes from the project are so extreme that they find it impossible to know what to shoot for. On the one hand, they don’t want to aim too high as they don’t want to fail but at the same time they don’t want to constrain themselves to only considering incremental opportunities. Even though it might seem to be a difficult exercise, teams that don’t have the discipline to set goals upfront are likely making a mistake.

8. Think like a startup entrepreneur.

After spending time with successful entrepreneurs, we were struck by the stories they told about the high levels of motivation and focus they displayed at their peak. This level of commitment and engagement is hard to mimic in a large corporation, where members of innovation teams often work under less pressure. In fact, we’ve often been surprised to see members of corporate innovation teams going about their work in a “business as usual manner” in stark contrast to the approach of startup entrepreneurs whose passion often drives them to work long hours and make other personal sacrifices for the good of the business. Much of the innovation taking place in today’s world is happening because of entrepreneurs and if big corporations are going to keep up, mindsets and behaviors among innovation teams will need to change.

9. Ensure team members have “both feet in.”

Regardless of the potential monetary or other rewards, there is no doubt that for any innovation team to be successful, team members must be fully committed and not “one foot in, one foot out.” When looking at this aspect of motivation it is helpful to put on the hat of a venture capitalist to understand what characteristics are most important to them when they evaluate an innovation team.

agree with all colleagues answers

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• Give them an awareness session on this topic.
• Train them to do so.
• Teach them how to prioritize their tasks.

Thank you for the invitation and I agree with Dr. Ghada

realize  their needs and make some incentives related to their needs.

I agree with M's Ghada answers, thanks for the invitation. 

Thanks. I would make an experiment with them. I'd give them so many tasks, more than they can finish in the time frame I set. I overwhelm them with tasks and I keep adding and adding to their pressure asking them to finish everything on time. Of course, if they do everything they can, they will barely finish up with many things missing or with some possible mistakes. . Then I'd evaluate each task I assigned them according to the excellence standard with them and let them find out their own shortfall. Of course they have an excuse of being pressured in time. I say yes, but if you had focused all your effort on this task, and if you hadn't had a time pressure, would you have done it differently? They would say "Yes, of course". I then would say, "Ok, now I'll give you all the time you need to finish this task again. I want you to do it best than anyone else can and to show me how different your results will be if you had no time pressure". Then they do it again and they see for themselves the benefit of focus and maintaining excellent high standards. 

Thanks for invitation

I am agreeing with my colleague’s answer Ms. Ghada Eweda  

Agree with experts answer <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Great answers posted over here

That is achieved by accurate assessment of the capabilities of the team members. When they are tasked with what they love to do and have targets to complete it in 90% of the time that is normally required to do the task they would focus completely and try their best to achieve it.

No amount of convincing and motivation would get a better result once the task assigned doesn't match their capabilities and/or timeline assigned is unrealistic (say 50% of time required).