The magic circle for doing things
How to successfully achieve your goals.
We all do it. We all need to do things. From cooking a meal with friends to plan family holidays. From publishing a photo in social media, to starting a new project at work. Sometimes, every now and then, we even have a crazy idea that we think: would this work? Could this become a successful business?
We all do it. But not always successfully. It would have been considerate not to invite the vegetarian friend for the killing of the pig. And how many arguments have happened to agree on the holidays’ location?
A good thought process can help avoiding problems. There’s no need to say that this is even more important on bigger things, like the crazy new idea you had after the third bottle of wine with friends.
You wake up in the morning and think: that would be cool. But where to start? What to do with it?
The most natural step would be to find a way to organize yourself. There are countless tools out there that can be used: Business Model Canvas, SWOT Analysis, MVP Experiment Canvas, etc.
But lets face it. Even if these methodologies have simplified the work a lot, compared to business plan templates from the 90’s and others, they are still fairly complex. And they still require a lot of work for something that, for now, it’s just an idea or something as straightforward as going on holidays.
So, we drop the process, right? It’s too much effort. It’s not worth it. Just drop the idea.
Or, alternatively, just do it. Start and adapt. See where it takes you. Sounds good but usually it ends up with lost direction, confusion, discussions. You plan on cooking a beef Wellington and end up with a poorly fried chicken.
It is important to keep focus. It’s important to know where you want to go. And it’s important to gain this awareness quickly. That way, good ideas can be pursued, while bad ones can be immediately discarded.
In 1902, Rudyard Kipling wrote the poem “I keep six honest serving men”:
I KEEP six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.
I send them over land and sea,
I send them east and west;
But after they have worked for me,
I give them all a rest.I let them rest from nine till five,
For I am busy then,
As well as breakfast, lunch, and tea,
For they are hungry men.
But different folk have different views;
I know a person small —
She keeps ten million serving-men,
Who get no rest at all!She sends’em abroad on her own affairs,
From the second she opens her eyes —
One million Hows, two million Wheres,
And seven million Whys!Rudyard Kipling
According to people who study poetry, this poem is about Rudyard’s daughter (the small person) and her inquisitive mind, always asking “how” and “why” about everything.
But another interpretation can be made from it. An interpretation about organization, and having a clear mind. Having a structured thinking process requires only 6 "men”, working at a reasonable pace. They can achieve the work and still have time for breakfast, lunch, tea, and rest. But millions of “hows” and “wheres”, working restlessly, might not achieve the same.
So, when trying to achieve something, the goal is to focus. Focus on the goal, not on the road. Because, just like the Chesire Cat said to Alice: “If you don’t know where you want to go, then it doesn’t matter which path you take”¹
And to help, this little circle can be used. Just like in a dart board the bullseye is in the center, we also want to hit the center of the circle. But we have to take it step by step.
One of the key points of this process is that it has to be iterative. You always have to review your answers, it’s always possible to go back.
Start from the outer rim. Answer the questions. Answer the questions again. Go the the next level. Repeat.
So, what are the questions?
Why? Explain the value of what you want to do. What is the reason for it to be important? What problem is it going to solve? It must be something you are passionate about. Something you strongly believe in. If there’s no value in it for you, maybe you can already drop the idea (or accept that you’ll do it just for the sake of doing it)
What? Describe, in a short sentence, what you want to achieve. What is going to solve the problem you have previously described? The shorter, clearer, more objective, the best. Something that is very important to be careful with is not to answer the “how” at this point. For example, if you want to go to the beach, you want to go to the beach. You don’t want to drive, by car, to the beach. The focus here is the beach, not the car.
Who/For Whom? Who will be involved or who are you doing it for. Or who will benefit from the execution of the activities. Think users, or customers.
Once you have the first answer to these questions, circle again. Maybe the “who” will influence the “what”. Maybe the “why” will make you re-think whom to involve. In general, it’s not possible to have a definitive answer to any of these questions without taking the others in consideration. So, go in circles until you’re happy.
At some point you’ll have your answers fixed. It’s now time for the
How? Here is where the work starts. What steps are required to achieve the “what” in a way that “who” can get the “why” that was intended? Think on execution. Make a plan. Think about the location and the timing. Check if it all makes sense, check if it’s feasible. And do it. Put the pedal to the metal. Keep adjusting. If at some point you need to change your plan, change it, but never, ever, forget the answers you started from.
When going through this process what is happening is that boundaries are being created. Constrains that will keep you on the right path to execute the goal you have proposed. You must respect the constrains, they are there to make you keep focus, and to be successful.
If you end up not having an answer to one of the questions, maybe it’s something not worth pursuing. If you ignore the boundaries you have set up for yourself, just like Alice, you’ll go on a driftless road that will, for sure, take you somewhere. But probably not where you intended.
In the end, this is not so different from the other canvas and boards that exist. They also make you think about value, about personas, about a plan to achieve the goals…
It’s only a way to try to simplify the decision making. A SWOP analysis does not make sense to evaluate if a photo should be posted on Instagram. But if the “who” of your Instagram account are “people who like food” maybe you should think twice before posting a picture of a political demonstration.
And this is something that you can quickly think about and evaluate.
It’s a also a quick framework that can be used if you have a random idea for a startup. Or if you are part of a project team and want to evaluate some scope change. Or if you are organizing a dinner with friends.
We all do it, somehow, implicitly, in our minds. But making it explicitly makes it more clear.
After all, it’s all about keeping focus. And successfully achieving your goals.
¹ Taken from here: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/8408227-if-you-don-t-know-where-you-want-to-go-then; Although this quote is not exactly correct, it represents the message. The real dialog between Alice and the Cat is this one: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/449586-alice-would-you-tell-me-please-which-way-i-ought
