Just One Thing — by Dan Lynn
By Dan Lynn
Early in my career, I landed a tough new job — the kind where you feel like you have everything to prove. So I did what ambitious people do: I went away and built a plan. Not just any plan. A really thorough, six-point strategic plan, with five to ten key activities under each point. Thirty, forty, maybe fifty things we were going to do. It was comprehensive. It was powerful. I was proud of it.
I walked my boss through the whole thing. When I finished, he said, "That's a great strategy. I love it. It's the best this department has ever had — and it's incredibly thorough."
I was glowing.
Then he said: "If you could only do one thing, what would it be?"
He knew we had limited people, limited time, limited money — and that a plan with fifty priorities has no priorities at all. He wasn't asking me to think smaller. He was asking me to choose.
I've carried that lesson my whole career. The leadership teams I advise never have too few ideas — they have too many, a long list of initiatives all somehow labeled "top priority." So I ask them the same question my boss asked me: "Yeah, but if you could only do one thing — or hire one person — what would it be?"
It's amazing how that one constraint cuts through the noise. And once everyone agrees on the one thing, I don't stop. I ask, "Okay, now what if you could do two? What's the second?" Then the third. We keep going until we've ranked the top three to five.
The magic isn't the list — it's the forced ranking. It makes plain what most teams avoid admitting: everything is not equally important. Some things matter far more than others, and pretending otherwise is how you end up doing a little of everything and none of it well.
Michael Porter said it best: strategy is about trade-offs. What you don't do is as important as what you do. In fact, the essence of strategy is choosing what not to do — what you say no to matters as much as what you say yes to.
Questions this Key Learning answers
How do I prioritize when every initiative seems important?
The author recommends asking, “If you could only do one thing, what would it be?” Once the team agrees, identify the second and third priorities until the top three to five are ranked. The point is not merely to create a list, but to force an honest choice about which initiatives matter more than others.
What do you do when a strategic plan has too many priorities?
Treat limited people, time, and money as real constraints. As the author learned, a plan with fifty priorities has no priorities at all. Our analysis suggests comparing good initiatives against one another, assigning resources in rank order, and making visible which work will stop or wait rather than spreading capacity thinly across everything.
Should I say no to good ideas that are not top priorities?
Yes, when other good ideas matter more and compete for the same capacity. The author’s central lesson is that strategy requires trade-offs: what is not done matters as much as what is done. Our analysis adds that prioritization has not actually occurred unless the team records what will stop or wait.