Rather than Jim Collins, I'd vote for Michael Porter as the management guru to read. His idea of generic strategies is a great way to deal with this. Essentially he says there are 3 generic strategies - cost leadership, differentiation, and focus (market segmentation), and that you need to pick one and follow it 100%. Doing that really can focus the company on what needs to be done now and what is irrelevant to your success.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porter_generic_strategies