A longtime reader wrote in with this important question:
“I know my message needs to be simpler. But which parts do I cut when every stakeholder insists their piece is important?”
That’s brutal, isn’t it? Everyone thinks their piece is the one that can’t go.
Here’s how I look at it …
Think of your message as the entrance to a building.
It’s not the whole building. It’s job is to make people want to step inside.
That means you don’t need every single room represented in the entrance hall.
You just need enough to make them curious to step in, to make them feel ‘yes, this building is worth entering.’
But if the entrance is cluttered with everything everyone wants to show, people won’t even come in.
That means no one will ever see your room, no matter how brilliant it is (or how important you think it is).
So the job of the message is simple:
make the entrance so clear, so inviting, that people want to step inside.
Then, once they’re in, you can show them around.
That’s when they will be open to exploring the rest.
But again, first they need to get through the door.
So when every stakeholder insists their piece is important, I tell them: Your piece is important for the building, it just doesn’t have to be the entrance.
When they see that, the fight usually stops.
Because now it’s about creating the clearest, most inviting entrance, not cramming the entire building into a single doorway.
Keep lighting the path,
Michael
PS: Question shared with permission in a shortened form. If you have a question you’d like me to address, just hit reply to this mail.
