Your Attention Please

“Swiss banking giant UBS AG has for years trumpeted the idea that melding an aggressive investment bank and wealthy-client private bank would create a revenue machine. On Tuesday, UBS conceded it had all been a bad idea.

“In an effort to scale back ambitions and take on less risk, UBS says it now plans to apply a little tough love to its investment bank...

“The moves are another blow to the cause of ‘universal banking,’ a concept that came in vogue during the 1990s positing that banks could cram a range of different products and services under one, cheaply-funded, banking umbrella. The idea has crumbled amid the credit- markets crunch, leaving the likes of Citigroup and UBS grasping for new directions.

“While UBS will continue pushing the private bank and investment bank to share clients, internally their separation was seen as a dramatic and disappointing capitulation.

“Chairman Peter Kurer says the old structure was the wrong one to run a big, global bank in Zurich, London and New York.

“‘Agility -- we want to get that back,’ Mr. Kurer said Tuesday.”

(“UBS Gets Tough on Its Investment Bank In a Retreat From 'Universal' Concept.” Carrick Mollenkamp and Katharina Bart. Wall Street Journal: August 13, 2008. pg. C.1)

FOCUS -- What do you know best? Focus -- What do you do best? Focus -- Who can you serve best?

There is little room for those who are not at their best. Without focus, the world will eat you up.

Get rid of the vogue -- stop watching and listening to others -- and learn the agility of focus.