Is the company with the most employees or the greatest variety of products always the most successful company?

Not necessarily according to Seth Godin, author of Linchpin and several other books. In a recent blog post , he discusses the importance of understanding the right carrying capacity of your organization particularly when it comes to employees.

“Ideas, markets, niches and causes have a natural scale. If you get it right, you can thrive for a long time. Overdo it and you stress the inputs….Your industry might have room for six or seven well-paid consultants, but when you try to scale up to 30 or 40 people on your team, you discover that it stresses the market's ability to pay.”

For some businesses that find themselves struggling, this may mean reducing staffing or products sold instead of expanding to try to recoup losses.

I think this idea can also be translated to fit on a personal level. Instead of expanding interests, activities, jobs, etc, it may be valuable to focus on those activities that provide the most benefit. Defining benefit would, of course, become very important. But by focusing on those few things, you could receive a greater reward for your efforts.