Trade-offs are essential to strategy. They create the need for choice and purposefully limit what a company offers.

... the strategic agenda is the right playe for defining a unique position, making clear trade-offs, and tightening fit. It involves the continual search for ways to reinforce and extend the company's position. The strategic agenda demands discipline and continuity; its enemies are distraction and compromise.

But many companies succumb to the temptation to chase "easy" growth by adding hot features, products, or services without screening them or adapting them to their strategy.

Managers are unable to make choices, so the company embarks on a new round of broadening and compromises.