Keep the
main thing, the main thing.
I was sent this image earlier in the week by a member of the extended Genius family… it’s
self evident what the brief is, what’s expected and even has some political and
behavioural guidelines around getting the project done. Smart it is. Simple. Elegant.
Racing
forward nearly 70 years later, we don’t see a great of this anymore. We get
pitch documents, and proposals and white papers. These sometimes needlessly
over complicate. The summary advice feels a bit obvious from time to time. And less
we forget the agency and clients involved, they neatly place both logos at the
foot of each page. Handy.
Before the
world of latte drinking consultants developed, briefs like the above were
ambitious and open enough to invite debate and question, but more often than
not, shit happened and stuff got done. Perhaps the same sort of wishes are
sketched out today in boardroom meetings and then handed to the procurement
people to get into finer detail (and maybe there was indeed a more lengthy set
of specifications for the floating barges) but the main objective was common to
all. Everyone knew what was expected, what wasn’t, what to do and intuitively
what to avoid. Call it a strategy if you like and type it up – but you still
don’t make things happen. I like the idea of all our projects following the
same format.
If it isn’t
on a page – it won’t get done.
Next year represents
a massive opportunity to spread more growth amongst our client base and spread
even more genius thinking around.
My challenge to everyone on the books both
within and outside of our business is to start 2014 with the key objective on a
page. Let's all keep the main thing, the main thing. Think about that over the festive season.
See you in 2014.
