Business Combat Power Learned at P&G: 'Don't Underestimate One Page!'

Nice to meet you, I'm Shin Hasegawa.

I am the manager of a company called MOON-X, which creates brands that embody Japanese craftsmanship and uses the power of technology to deliver them to the world through a D2C business. Currently, we have launched the craft beer CRAFT X, men's skincare SKIN X, and women's skincare BITOKA. After moving from Tokio Marine to P&G marketing, and experiencing roles as Senior Executive Officer of Global Marketing at Rakuten and Representative Director of Facebook Japan, I founded MOON-X in August 2019.

With a desire to commit to my life's work of nurturing the next generation of business leaders while seriously facing my own business, I started sharing information on Twitter (@ShinHasegawa8) a few months ago, and have now decided to start on note as well. I would be very happy if my experiences and thoughts could be of any help, even by a millimeter, to the future leaders who will carry the new Japan. Thank you for your support.

With that introduction out of the way, let's get started right away.

After graduating from university, I first worked at an insurance company. While gaining experience as a working professional, I joined P&G through a connection introduced by my seminar professor.

After joining P&G, I encountered one major way of thinking that changed my life.

Summarize all business proposals on a single page

At P&G, there was a culture of summarizing your thoughts and proposals on one sheet called 'one page.' I was greatly influenced by this one page that conveys one's thoughts completely.

Some might think that making just one page sounds easy, but summarizing a proposal onto one page is actually very difficult. Honestly, it is easier to create a document of several dozen pages. This is because the number of pages just increases as you write down your proposal, the supporting data, and the background. To get a proposal approved or to get others involved, you must strip away elements as much as possible and summarize them on one page. By doing this, you can reach a consensus in a short time with teammates and decision-makers. Furthermore, because you have thought through what is essentially necessary in the process of creating that one page, the quality of the proposal content improves, and consequently, your thinking ability is greatly trained.

Also, one page can be used in any business situation. The usage is wide-ranging, from 1-on-1s with bosses and subordinates, team meetings, internal proposals, new product strategies, to annual business plans. The reason it is so versatile is that the items necessary for making a proposal are basically the same, consisting of the following five.

#1 Objective: What is the purpose?
#2 Background: What is the background?
#3 Proposal / Option: What is the proposal? Are there options?
#4 Key Discussion: What do you want to decide (or have decided) through discussion?
#5 Next Step: Who will do what by when?

One-page utilization method | Team meeting

I will explain with a concrete example. Imagine a proposal at a team meeting. You are a young member of the team, and you are scheduled to bring a proposal for the next limited-time product promotion to your seniors next week. There are strict seniors, and I feel heavy-hearted... Let's keep the setting to this. Let's think about it in light of the five items mentioned above.

#1 Objective:
What is the purpose of releasing a limited-time product? (Developing new customers? Increasing average spend? Increasing purchase frequency?), What is the definition of success? (Sales? Profit? Number of customers? Average spend?)
#2 Background:
What are the lessons learned from the previous limited-time product? (What was good, what was bad?), What are consumer needs?, What is the competitor situation?
#3 Proposal / Option:
What do you want to do with the next limited-time product? If there are several options, what are the pros and cons of each?
#4 Discussion:
Where are the points you want to discuss with your seniors at the team meeting? What do you absolutely want to decide or have decided?
#5 Next Step:
Who will follow up on what by when?

How is it? Doesn't it seem like you can comprehensively summarize the necessary elements on one page from now on? I think it is also difficult for young professionals to create proposal documents for team meetings. You don't even know where to start thinking in the first place. I was the same. Please try to use the five items to leverage the power of one page in your daily work.

One-page utilization method | Business strategy

A one-pager is effective not only for daily tasks like team meetings but also for major situations such as business strategy for the company. Even if the items to cover are basically the same as the five mentioned above, the time and process spent on creation will change. I will introduce my method as an example.

For high-priority proposals like business strategies, I decide to spend 100 days to complete a one-pager. If the period is too short, you end up creating it without gathering enough information, and it doesn't go well. To create a proper one-pager, I make sure to gather as much information as possible and spend 100 days finishing it.

As part of information gathering, I always engage in back-and-forth discussions with team members. Through these exchanges, my own thoughts become more solid, and I find strategies or expressions that I can truly be convinced by. The image is that I have about 70% of it fully understood and accepted by myself before outputting, and I solidify the remaining 30% while engaging in these discussions. As we go back and forth, information I hadn't gathered always comes up. Or, I might realize that even though I thought I had fully understood and summarized it, the way I'm conveying it might be misunderstood by everyone; there are so many unexpected realizations. Because I have to explain it to others, I can view my own thoughts from a bird's-eye perspective, which allows me to make calm judgments. It might be a necessary task for me.

When distilling a large amount of gathered information into a single page, what I value most is my own sense of conviction. In every choice of words, the criteria for project decisions, and everything expressed on that one page, I ensure that I am thoroughly and truly convinced.

When I went to Rakuten, I also created a one-pager in my first 100 days. I clarified the vision and purpose for the global marketing organization I was building, by when we would take actions to achieve that, and how we would measure it with KPIs.
When I was at Facebook and became the Representative Director, one of the first things I did in my first 100 days was to create something that could be properly conveyed in one page as Facebook Japan. Even now, after founding MOON-X, when I first met Kiuchi Brewery, who makes our craft beer, and Nihon Kolmar, who develops our skincare, I created a one-pager and brought it with me. That is how much it has become
the foundation for doing my work.

The following is the one-pager I actually brought to Kiuchi Brewery when proposing a collaboration with MOON-X (please note that since this is the actual document, confidential company information has been hidden).

The one-pager is a way of thinking that works in any business situation and in any organization. This is the reason for the strong phrase, 'Don't underestimate the one-pager!'

That concludes 'Business Combat Power Learned at P&G: Don't Underestimate the One-Pager!' Please try using it in your own daily work. I believe your thoughts will be clearly organized, what you want to do will become clear, and you will be able to efficiently involve those around you, allowing projects to proceed as you intend.

Also, I post daily on Twitter with tips for business leaders to increase their '#BusinessCombatPower'. If you'd like, please follow @ShinHasegawa8!