Chip and Dan Heath have brought us a compelling book entitled Made to Stick. The book covers six attributes that helps ideas survive and spread. The first attribute is simplicity: the ability to communicate the core of an idea in a compact fashion.
The first illustration they use of getting to the core of an idea is the military's use of the Commanders Intent or CI. The CI in the military is "the crisp plain-talk statement that appears at the top of every order, specifying the plan's goal, the desired end-state of the operation. The value of the CI is that it does not prescribe how to get something done, just what must be done. Therefore the CI "aligns the behavior of soldiers at all levels without requiring play-by-play instructions of their leaders." In combat training, officers are encouraged to execute the CI by asking two questions each day:
1) If we do nothing else during tomorrow's mission we must ______________.
2) The single most important thing that we must do tomorrow is ________________.