Dwight Davies said the following to me long ago:
"At any given time there are three to five things that a company is working on that are driven by the board and CEO on down, and everyone owns a piece of them. They're not always the obvious things. If you are talking to people about one of those things, you're helping. If you are talking about anything else, you're on the outside and you're selling."
I think this is true wisdom.
Link to original post