July 1, 2009

When Less is More...Peggy Noonan is a graceful writer. She also clearly understands the importance of “focus.” In her June 26 Wall Street Journal piece, she talks about how Barack Obama’s to-do list should fit into one sentence, not 10 paragraphs.

She explains it this way. “The Sentence comes from a story Clare Boothe Luce told about a conversation she had in 1962 in the White House with her old friend John F. Kennedy. She told him, she said, that ‘a great man is one sentence.’ His leadership can be so well summed up in a single sentence that you don’t have to hear his name to know who’s being talked about. ‘He preserved the union and freed the slaves,’ or, ‘He lifted us out of a great depression and helped to win a World War.’ You didn’t have to be told ‘Lincoln’ or ‘FDR.’”

Ms. Noonan goes on to note that “new White Houses are always ardent for change, for breakthroughs. They want the sentence even when they don’t know the sentence exists, even when they think it’s a paragraph. The Obama people want, ‘He was the president who gave all Americans health care,’ and, ‘He lessened income inequality,’ and, ‘He took over a failed company,’ and other things. They want a jumble of sentences and do a jumble of things. But an administration about everything is an administration about nothing.”

This everything/nothing notion doesn’t just apply to political leaders. How often have you seen a corporate mission statement that promises to do everything from cure cancer to end world hunger? Or gone to a restaurant that offers so many diverse choices that selecting what to order becomes a test?

It’s about focus. Do a few things very well and the sentence will write itself.

Post a comment