Rule of Three
When advice resonates
TLDR: Have an honest conversation, plant the flag, and do one meaningful thing first
You’ve probably heard of the The Rule of Three. It’s famously written about in Aristotle’s book Rhetoric.
The idea is pretty straightforward—we remember in threes.
You see this come to life nearly everywhere you look—literature, slogans, comedy, public speaking, and of course business advice. For example…
The Three Little Pigs
See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil
Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness
Blood, sweat, and tears (which was originally Churchill’s “blood, toil, tears, and sweat”)
But let’s talk business advice. I have endless frameworks thanks to my time at LinkedIn, but here’s one that has always stuck as it relates to taking on a new job.
Have an honest conversation, plant the flag, and do one meaningful thing first.
I was given this advice after receiving my first role as a people manager. I was 26, and had lots of ideas about what I thought management and leadership were, the things I could accomplish, and how to be successful. Despite all of that, probably the best thing I did was ask for advice before taking action.
I sat down with one of our senior leaders, and pretty bluntly shared my imposter syndrome and my energy to blow away everyone’s expectations of me.
As many great leaders do, he turned a complex problem into a simple one and shared this:
To be great in a new job, you only have to do three things. You have to have an honest conversation [with your team]. You have to plant the flag. And you have to do one meaningful thing first.
He said, too many people rush to make an impact. They pick up every priority, and inevitably fail to move anything forward in a meaningful way.
Instead…
If all you do is have an honest conversation [with your team], you will be further ahead on developing understanding and compassion
If from that conversation you develop a shared objective and plant the flag for yourself and your team, you will have a common purpose to focus on
And if you only pick one thing to focus on—something important, but also something you know you can accomplish—you will not only make progress, but you will develop trust with others that you can get sh*t done
And in that first people manager job, I did just that.
The honest conversation went something like this: “how many of you love your jobs and really want to be here?” … Two out of ten people raised their hands.
We planted the flag on getting the entire team promoted. It turned out they didn’t love their jobs because no one felt they had opportunities to advance.
And to get promoted we needed to improve results. One thing I noticed was that our Sales Development team was doing 45-minute discovery calls. While a great learning opportunity, it wasn’t the job at hand. We focused on one thing: 15-minute qualifying calls
As a result, the team moved from last place to first within a month, six months later we had qualified more opportunities than any SDR team globally, and every single member of the team was promoted.
So while it may be off the beaten path from the famous rules of three, whether you’re starting a new job or simply need a refresh, take a moment away to think. Have an honest conversation, (re)plant the flag, and do one meaningful thing first.
Keep it simple and find your own rules of three.
See you Monday.