Two companies near the edge of ruin had far too many things to fix. Both began, not with what to add, but with what to stop, and with the one thing the rest depended on.
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Ten items. Say your answer out loud before you reveal it.
Read the sentence, guess the meaning of the word in bold, then reveal.
Three terms: the vital few · a quick win · scope creep. Say the right one, then reveal.
One missing word fits every phrase in the group. Say it, then reveal.
Read each part. After it, answer the quick check from memory, then discuss one question. The figures are rounded, and the facts are as the cases were reported.
You may have met this case in Ninety Days from Empty. This time, look at it through the lens.
In 1985, Apple’s co-founder Steve Jobs lost a boardroom battle and left the company he had started. Through the early 1990s the company that remained was profitable for a while, then steadily less so. Computers running Microsoft Windows took more and more of the market. Apple responded by making more: many versions of the Macintosh with confusing model numbers, printers, early digital cameras, a handheld organiser called the Newton, even a games console. It also began licensing its operating system to other makers, whose cheaper copies mainly took sales from Apple itself.
By mid-1997 Apple was losing money fast, roughly a billion dollars that financial year. The share price had collapsed, respected commentators were suggesting it should be sold or closed, and the chief executive was removed in July. Jobs, who had returned when Apple bought his later company NeXT, later said that the company had been within about ninety days of running out of money. He agreed to lead it on a temporary basis.
He began with cuts. In August 1997 he announced a deal that shocked a conference audience: Microsoft would invest 150 million dollars in non-voting Apple shares and commit to making its Office software for the Mac for at least five years. He ended the licensing programme. And he reviewed the product line, found dozens of products and variations, and reduced the future to a grid of four boxes: computers for consumers and for professionals, each as a desktop and a portable. Most other products and projects were stopped, including the Newton and the printers. In 1998 the new operations chief, Tim Cook, cut inventory from months of stock to days. In May 1998 the iMac arrived, and Apple was profitable again for the year.
1. What did Apple do in response to losing market share in the early 1990s?
2. What did Jobs say about the company’s finances in 1997?
3. What were the first things he stopped, and what grid did he keep?
1. It made more: many confusing versions of the Mac, printers, cameras, a handheld organiser and even a games console, and it licensed its operating system to other makers whose cheaper machines took its own sales.
2. That the company had been within about ninety days of running out of money.
3. He ended the licensing programme and stopped most products and projects, including the Newton and the printers. He kept a grid of four boxes: consumer and professional computers, each as a desktop and a portable.
You may have met this case in Saved by Fewer Bricks. This time, look at it through the lens.
By 2003 the Lego Group, family-owned since 1932, was losing money at a rate that threatened its existence. Sales had fallen sharply, debt had climbed towards the billion-dollar mark, and the owners were advised that they might have to sell. The strange part was how it had happened. Lego had not been lazy; it had been frantic. Convinced that children were abandoning physical toys for screens, the company had diversified in every direction at once: theme parks, clothing, watches, video games, television tie-ins, its own shops.
The problem ran down to the plastic. Designers, freed from commercial discipline, had multiplied the number of distinct brick shapes and colours to around thirteen thousand, many used once, each requiring its own steel mould. Nobody could say with confidence which products made money.
In 2004 the owner handed the company to Jørgen Vig Knudstorp, a thirty-five-year-old former consultant, the first chief executive from outside the family. His opening message was deliberately unheroic: there would be no inspiring vision for a while. Survival first. Cash mattered more than growth. The theme parks were sold, the clothing and other sidelines were licensed out or closed, and the number of brick elements was roughly halved, to six or seven thousand. Every new mould and colour now needed a business case. The company turned back to its core play themes. Profitability returned within two years, and by the mid-2010s Lego had overtaken Mattel to become one of the largest toy companies in the world.
1. Why does the case say Lego was ‘frantic’ and not ‘lazy’?
2. What did the new chief executive’s opening message say, and why was it unusual?
3. What were three of the things stopped or reduced?
1. Because it had reacted to a perceived threat by diversifying in every direction at once, into parks, clothes, watches, games and more, and had multiplied its brick shapes, rather than doing too little.
2. That there would be no inspiring vision for a while: survival and cash came first. It was unusual because new leaders normally promise a big idea.
3. Any three: the theme parks were sold; clothing and other sidelines were licensed out or closed; the number of brick elements was roughly halved; every new mould or colour needed a business case.
Both companies faced the same question in a different form: what do we do first? And both answered it in the same unusual way. They did not begin with what to build. They began with what to stop.
Use the lens. What is urgent, and what is only loud? Urgent: the cash running out, ninety days away at Apple and an annual loss in the hundreds of millions at Lego. Loud: a games console, a clothing line, a thousand model numbers. Which few matter most? Apple’s four boxes, and Lego’s core play themes. What depends on what? At Apple, the Microsoft agreement made the platform safe for business customers, and the software deal made everything else possible. At Lego, nothing could grow until the cost of producing thousands of one-use pieces was brought under control.
The answers were not only about what came first. Most of the work was about what to leave, and about saying so. Both leaders closed whole areas of activity, and both kept their messages simple. The honest question the lens leaves open is whether ‘focus’ is a permanent principle, or only a rule for emergencies. A company that has recovered must still decide what to start again.
1. What was urgent at each company, and what was merely loud?
2. What did the Microsoft agreement make possible at Apple?
3. What question does the lens leave open?
1. Urgent: the lack of cash (ninety days at Apple; large annual losses at Lego). Loud: the many products and projects, such as the games console, clothing lines and model numbers.
2. It reassured business customers and software makers that essential software would stay on the Mac, which made the rest of the recovery plan possible.
3. Whether focus is a permanent principle or only a rule for emergencies, and what a recovered company should start again.
A “What first…?” question asks for an order. It is common when there is too much to do and not enough people, time or money. The lens helps you sort what is urgent from what is only loud, find the few things that matter most, and see which tasks unlock the rest. It is a thinking aid: it gets you to an order you can defend, not to the one perfect order.
Each situation describes one item on a long list. Where does the lens put it? Choose, then check.
1. Do now — it is urgent (orders are failing now) and it blocks everything else.
2. Hand it on — someone else can do it as well as you can, so your time is better spent elsewhere.
3. Do next — it is important but not urgent, so it needs a date and not a ‘when I have time’.
4. Leave it — it produces no value; stopping it, and saying so, frees a day each month.
5. Do now — a real cost is arriving on a fixed date and the client has said so.
6. Do next — it is important and not yet urgent, so schedule it before it becomes urgent.
7. Hand it on — the task does not need you, and handing it on frees time for work only you can do.
Everything really is urgent. Sometimes it is. Then the lens helps you say what you can still delay by a day, and what would cost most if it slipped.
The ranking itself is disputed. Two people may rank the same list differently because they care about different things. Say your criterion out loud so the argument is about that and not about the list.
Urgent is a feeling. A loud request can feel urgent. Ask: what exactly happens, and when, if this waits?
A priority answer is mostly about order. This language says what comes first, what depends on it, and what matters most, in a way that sounds composed.
Write one word, or the verb form given, in each gap.
1. when the payments work can we test the other fixes.
2. Not until the cash was secure did the company (start) to invest again.
3. What matters most the payment error, not the typos.
4. Hardly had the team finished one fix another problem appeared.
1. Only — Only when… can we…, with inversion
2. start — base form after did in the inverted clause
3. is — What matters most is… (cleft)
4. when — Hardly… when… for two events in quick succession
Use each expression from the box once: first and foremost · until · only then · once.
1. , we need the payment errors fixed; they are costing us orders.
2. We will not begin the redesign every fix has been tested.
3. the payments work, we can look at the login delay.
4. The cash must be secure. should the company think about new products.
1. First and foremost — the first and most important thing
2. until — not… until marks the point at which it can begin
3. Once — introduces a condition that must be completed first
4. Only then — the next step is allowed only after the previous one
Now say a priority order for a real list of tasks, out loud: use first and foremost and one of only when…can we… or not until…did…, and say what you are leaving out.
Say the order, say the reason, and say what you are leaving. Choose a task, start the timer, and talk.
Choose one: You have six problems and one week. A team has five projects and two people. You run a small shop with too much stock and too few customers. Name three of the items, say which comes first and why, and say one thing you would leave.
Describe something that felt urgent and was only loud, or something quiet that turned out to be urgent. Say how you could tell, and what you would do differently now.
Someone asks you to take on a new task. Say no in under thirty seconds: give the reason, say what you are protecting, and offer a date when you could look at it.