The One Thing

The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results

Author: Gary Keller with Jay Papasan Year: 2013 Reading time of this summary: about 45 minutes

A man fires himself

In 2001, Gary Keller was running a real estate company that had built a national name in less than a decade. The numbers said success. His life said something else. The company had stalled. Goals were slipping. He was working harder, sleeping less, and feeling, in his own words, like a man at the end of a short rope that looked eerily like a noose. So he hired a coach.

The coach did his homework, then put Keller's organizational chart up on a wall and asked one question. Do you know what you need to do to turn things around? Keller did not. The coach said there was only one thing that mattered. He had identified fourteen positions in the company that needed new faces. Find the right people for those fourteen seats, the coach said, and the company, the job, and the life would change. Keller pushed back. Surely it would take more than that. The coach answered with a line Keller never forgot. Jesus needed twelve. You will need fourteen.

Then Keller did something most CEOs in trouble would never do. He fired himself. He stepped down as chief executive of his own company and made finding those fourteen people his only job. Within three years, Keller Williams Realty entered a stretch of growth that averaged forty percent year over year for almost a decade. The company moved from regional player to international contender. The earth moved, this time for real.

Out of that turnaround, a habit emerged. Keller began coaching the top people he had recruited. He used to end calls with a list of half a dozen tasks for the week. People would do most of them, but rarely the one that mattered. So he shortened the list. Three. Then two. Finally, out of frustration, he asked a single question. What's the ONE Thing you can do this week such that by doing it everything else would be easier or unnecessary? Results went through the roof. The book in your hands is the system that grew from that question.