If you chase two rabbits, you will not catch either one.
–Russian proverb
In projects small and large–everything from an email to a book–we often struggle to develop and state a clear point. Too often, we spit out a mess of ideas rather than deliver a clear message. The result is confusion–for both the writer and the reader.
To think this problem through, I recommend a business book by Gary Keller called The One Thing. The answer for all business problems, Keller argues, is to be clear on a simple question: What’s “The One Thing” that matters most for your business? The same principle holds for writing. To write well–clearly, with energy and creativity–you need to know what is “The One Idea” that you want to convey to your readers.
Keller is the founder and CEO of Keller Williams, a real estate company that beats the worldwide competition on all the key measures, like the number of agents, the sales volume, and the number of units sold. He is, in other words, a salesman, and good salespeople understand communications. They know how to approach a prospect, how to connect, and how to close. Their knowledge, properly understood, can be applied to any challenge involving communications and relationships.
It’s worth quoting Keller:
People can actually do two or more things at once, such as walk, talk, or chew gum and read a map; but, like computers, what we can’t do is focus on two things at once. Our attention bounces back and forth. This is fine for computers, but it has serious repercussions in humans. Two airliners are cleared to land on the same runway. The patient is given the wrong medicine. A toddler is left unattended in the bathtub. What all these potential tragedies share is that people are trying to do too many things at once and forget to do something they should do.
When you try to do two things, one or both suffer from inadequate attention. But when you figure out The One Idea, magic happens.
When you have a definite purpose for your life, clarity comes faster, which leads to more conviction in your direction, which usually leads to faster decisions. When you make faster decisions, you’ll often be the one who makes the fastest decisions and winds up with the best choices. And when you have the best choices, you have the opportunity for the best experiences.
The single greatest challenge in life–in all endeavors–is to decide “The One Thing.” If you’re a business, what’s The One Thing you offer that your competition does not?
The ‘One Thing’ for Books
Keller’s book The One Thing is, naturally, proof of his thesis. His book focuses on a single idea–namely, that success requires a total, fanatical dedication to one single approach to your challenge.
After reading Keller’s book, I surveyed my shelves to see what other books focused on just one idea. Here are ten seminal books that state and develop just one idea:
• Albert Hirschman, Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: All people and organizations face a simple choice when they don’t like how things are going in their organization: leave, speak out, or stick around.
• Peter Thiel, From Zero to One: To succeed in business, find a product or service that no one now offers (zero) and become the single, dominant provider (one).
• Konstantin Stanislavski, The Actor Prepares: To portray a character, feel what you would feel if you were in that situation.
• Greg Albert, The Simple Secret to Better Painting: To produce engaging art, put key elements off-center.
• Clayton Christensen, The Innovator’s Dilemma: Companies can fail when they do everything right. As they refine their production process, they can lose control of their business by farming out parts of their production process.
• Virginia Postrel, The Future and Its Enemies: The real divide in politics and policy concerns people’s attitude to change. Dynamists love change and seek to play a part in making it happen. Stasists fear change and fight it at every step.
• Karl Marx, Capital: Everything in market economies turns on the battle over “surplus value”–its creation and distribution–and that battle is inherently expansionist and unstable.
• John Stuart Mill, On Liberty: All political arrangements should be subjected to a single question: What arrangements produce the greatest happiness for the greatest number? Over the long haul, the greatest happiness requires guaranteeing the widest possible freedom for individuals (something known as “rule utilitarianism”).
• James David Barber, The Presidential Character: All presidents (and all leaders?) can be assessed by two dimensions–their levels of energy and affect.
• Arthur Schesinger Jr., The Cycles of American Politics: American politics moves, back and forth, from periods of government expansion and reform to periods of government contraction and conservatism.
I could list 50 more books, but you get the idea. In each of these works, the author states and develops just one idea. The book’s idea, though, is so powerful that it requires us to look at it from a number of different angles, the way a jeweler examines a diamond.
Identify The One Idea for All Levels of Writing
Identifying The One Idea is essential not just for books, but for everything you write.
For every email, letter, memo, report, proposal, query, RFP, web copy, speech, presentation, make sure you can name The One Idea you want to discuss.
Sometimes, when I teach this idea, I get pushback. Strangely, the pushback comes most intensely on smaller pieces, like emails and memos. “Do you really want me to send two emails just because I talk about two issues,” business people ask.
“Yes,” I respond.
Let me explain.
Whenever you communicate, you need to make sure your audience knows exactly what you want to accomplish. Confusion at any point will create a long string of confusion. Confusion results when one idea gets mixed with other ideas.
Suppose you send an email about two issues in your company–like whether to spend X dollars on a new web consultant and what strategy to take on the Y campaign. You’re sure about X but uncertain about Y; meanwhile, a colleague is uncertain about X but sure about Y; another is sure about both; yet another is uncertain about both.
Inevitably, the conversation gets tangled and confused. When you zap ideas back and forth, people are talking about both … or are they? (Cue Hitchcock’s Psycho music here.) As both conversations continue, people aren’t always sure what they’re talking about. Some discuss X, others Y, and others both; meanwhile, others drop out. The conversation gets vague and muddied–or, worse, a few know-it-alls take over. Meanwhile, the string of missives fills the email queue. Unless you settle both issues, the emails keep coming.
If you send one email on one issue you can isolate the issue till it gets settled. The issues are always clear. You don’t lost in a thicket of confusing messages about many topics. You focus wholly on one topic that can be settled, one way or another.
The One Idea, of course, can contain several sub-issues. But those sub-issues should relate to The One Idea. You can’t veer off to other topics. Otherwise, you create uncertainty and confusion: “Hold it–I thought we were talking about X. How did Y get into the conversation?”
When people get confused, they often drop out. You hoped to “save time” by knocking off two ideas–two rabbits–at the same time. But now you don’t know the status of either.
When your pieces have The One Idea, everyone gets on the same page. You always know the topic of discussion. You always know the issues, the pros and cons, and the to-do list. You know when the issue gets settled–and when it still needs attention.
How to Do It: Gather, Sort, Apply
So how do you find The One Thing for your writing? And how do you respond when readers say they want a bunch of things? Take it in stages.
First, gather lots of material. Start by brainstorming what you already know. Get it all down on a single piece of paper, so you can see it all at once. Look at that sheet. Draw lines and arrows showing relationships.
Once you have a picture of your current mind, figure out what’s missing. The extent of your research depends on your topic and the scale of your project. Do research. Talk to people. Google the topic. Search databases online. Go to the library. Dig into archives. Do surveys or experiments. Analyze data.
Second, sort your ideas. Let the ideas play out. Don’t rush. When you rush, you have a tendency to force your preconceived ideas on yourself.
As you sort your material, write down possibilities for The One Idea. You should have lots of candidates for most of your project. You will think X is your One Idea. Then you’ll think it’s Y. Then you’ll think it’s Z. That’s OK. It’s important to consider a range of possibilities. You’ll only find your One Idea if you have considered–seriously–lots of ideas.
Third, discover and apply your One Idea. See if you can organize the different level of your piece to The One Idea. If something doesn’t fit, ask why. It might be that you’re wandering off topic. Or it might mean that you have not sharpened your One Idea well enough. Continue to play with your ideas.
Often you cannot discover The One Idea until you’ve been struggling a long time. That’s fine. This is a process; it’s not flipping a switch. Once you get The One Idea, you can use it to restructure and sharpen your points. All the work–all the research, all the debate, all the confusion–will be worth it because you’ll produce a piece with total clarity.
Push for the One Idea
So my advice to you: Push yourself to identify the One Idea. Whatever you’re writing–an email or a report, an article or a book, a speech or web copy, and RFP or a proposal–make sure you have One Idea.
The football great John Madden insisted that only one quarterback can lead a team. When two QBs share duties, you lose. “When you have two,” he said, “you have none.”
Sometimes it takes a long time. Usually, you change your mind as you proceed through research to rewriting to rewriting to editing. That’s OK. But when you get it right, it will give meaning and unity to everything in the piece.
(Oh, by the way. Did this essay state and develop just One Idea?)
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