The Writing Weapons McKinsey Taught Me: From Logical Thinking to Copywriting

Chapter 4 How to present your thoughts with wonderful copywriting?

—— Are you able to use the skills of expressive thinking?
3.8 The skill of MECE lies in "thinking and extending"

MECE: no repetition, no omission
In addition to the number of topics and the pyramid structure, there is another concept that is very important when forming key topics, that is, whether the topics are MECE.

The full name of MECE is "Mutually Exclusive Collectively Exhaustive". The literal translation means "mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive", and some people translate it into "no repetition, no omission".The purpose of setting the key topics at three, five, or seven is to make the classification clear without repetition, and at the same time to completely collect important items without omission. "No repetition" is for easy understanding, and "no omission" is for more convincing.Therefore, MECE is the basic concept of logical thinking.

For example, use MECE to analyze the concept of "person" (main subject), and divide key subjects into men and women, or adults and children.If it is divided into men and adults, adults also include men, which creates duplication, and also omits children and women.

If the main theme is "seasons," then the key themes are spring, summer, fall, and winter.If the main theme is "Orientation," then the key themes are East, South, West, and North.Although these things have infinite layers in reality, they can be divided into several parts conceptually.For example, there are seven days in a week, that is, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday; and the size can be divided into large, medium, and small; the 3Rs of "recycling society" are reduction (Reduce ), reuse (Reuse) and recycling (Recycle).These are examples of MECE compliance.

Although the number of secondary topics increases, it is somewhat difficult to ensure that the secondary levels comply with MECE, but in the level of key topics, we should try our best to avoid repetition and omission.

Can't think of your own MECE architecture, use the ready-made one first
The "Five Forces Analysis" proposed by Professor Michael Porter is also a pyramid structure (analysis framework).In the business world, five forces analysis is often used to formulate competitive strategies, and it is an essential analytical tool for analyzing and understanding industries.Mike Porter decomposes the main theme of "forces affecting industry" into five key themes of MECE nature: five forces.They are "threat of potential entrants", "threat of substitute products or services", "bargaining power of suppliers", "bargaining power of buyers", and "competitiveness of existing competitors".The role of this analytical framework is that as long as you can grasp the relationship between the five forces, you can understand the forces that affect the industry.

In addition, the "3C" analysis framework is also very famous. The pyramid structure of 3C uses three English words starting with C as the key theme to support the main theme: corporate strategy. 3C refers to the enterprise itself (Company), competitors (Competitors), customers or market (Customer).When thinking about business strategy in general, as long as you master these three key themes, you will generally not miss important elements, and there will be no repetition.

However, some industries are restricted industries and are greatly affected by the competent authority, so it is better to add another C: Authority (Controller) to make it more complete.Also, if the marketing channel is also an important factor affecting the industry, then one more "channel" should be added, so that it becomes 5C.

Get into the habit of MECE

"C" appears more and more, I will introduce a few more.Have you ever heard of the "4Cs" of evaluating diamonds?The first is the weight unit that you often hear: carat (Carat), 1 carat is 200 mg; then there is the cut (Cut) that represents the shape, such as round, oval, triangle, etc.; and the color that represents the color ( Color), such as colorless, yellow, brown, etc.; finally, the transparency (Clarity) indicating whether there are scars or impurities.

By the way, hardness is not included here, probably because hardness is an element that diamonds should have, and soft diamonds are counterfeit, so they are not included in the evaluation items.

Just like the aforementioned "Diamond 4Cs", "Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter", "3Rs of a Recycling Society" and other examples, MECE analysis is not only used to formulate business strategies or promote business, it is best to be able to Use it extensively to develop a habit of thinking.

Through the training in daily life, let MECE naturally integrate into thinking.For example, if you want to throw out garbage in your daily life, when you see combustible garbage and kitchen waste, you will feel as if there are repetitions, and you will also find omissions: "So what about plastic bottles and other bottles and cans?" manage?"

When making coffee, it is MECE's thinking whether to put sugar or not; whether to put creamer is also MECE's thinking; of course, how much to put is also one of the options.However, the most fundamental option is whether to release or not, which is the so-called "collection and inclusion" (no omission); also, release and non-release cannot be done at the same time, which is "mutual exclusivity" (non-repetition).All in all, no matter what job you are in, please try to develop the habit of thinking with MECE in your daily life.

It's okay to repeat a little bit, don't miss it

Although I want everyone to set a theme that does not omit or repeat at the level of the key information of the pyramid structure, the threshold for truly achieving it is very high.Slight repetition of information is not serious, but it is difficult to avoid complete omissions - it is because they are not found that they are omitted, isn't it?

The so-called MECE means "no repetition, no omission", but when we talk about it, we often say "no omission, no repetition", and the order is just reversed.Why?Maybe it's because everyone thinks that omission is a more serious problem, and so does my own experience.In analysis, omission of important themes is a far more fatal mistake than slight repetition.

For example, a company entrusts a business consultant to formulate a suitable sales strategy.After the consultants figure out what's going on in the market, they analyze the actions of other companies.He then judged that the strategy of other companies was sound and suggested that the company adopt the same strategy.

But even if other companies' strategies make sense, it's only for those companies that you don't know if they're right for the business.If other companies are full of high-end product categories, maybe the company's customer strategy does not follow the route of high-end products.

All in all, as long as the substantive analysis of the corporate client itself is left out, it will be difficult for us to make appropriate recommendations.

Setting "Other" as the theme can prevent omissions and errors
So, how can we prevent analytical "missing"?Unfortunately, as far as I know, there is no perfect way to prevent omissions, and I think there should be no such way.However, there are two ways to reduce the chance of misses occurring.

The first method is to master the ready-made MECE analysis framework.In other words, first store many sets of MECE analysis frameworks (such as five forces, 3C, 4P, SWOT analysis, etc.) in your cheats, and then choose the appropriate method to apply according to the current job you encounter.Even if it doesn't fit perfectly, it should work with a little modification.

Another method that also works well is to set "Other" as the subject.That is to say, in addition to the theme that I came up with, I set another "other" anyway.Logically speaking, at least the collection and inclusion of "no omission" is ensured.Although the concept of "other" is very vague, it can indeed be considered as a topic for the time being.

The most important thing is what to do next.After setting "Other" as the theme, start adding sub-themes under the key theme of "Other" according to specific cases.In this way, when you feel that some sub-themes cannot be classified under the set key themes, you can temporarily put these sub-themes under "Others".Wait until there are more and more sub-topics under "Other" and you will discover the nature of the key topic "Other".

For example, something is broken and needs to be repaired.If the main theme is set as "troubleshooting", the first thought should be to determine which part is broken, so the first key theme is set as "condition control".Of course, the cause of the failure is also curious, so the next key topic is "cause identification".Then, repairs are carried out according to the reasons found, so there is another key theme of "repair".

Organize "other" cases so you don't miss them
After understanding the failure condition, finding out the cause, and then repairing it, it looks good.Even so, we still can't help worrying whether we will not achieve "no omission, no repetition".In fact, status control and cause identification can be regarded as continuous work.Probably very few people try to grasp the situation without finding out the cause.Most people will analyze what is broken while thinking about why it is broken, or when analyzing why it is broken, think about what is broken at the same time.

In other words, at least at the working level, there will be duplication of status and cause identification.However, conceptually, the two can indeed be distinguished, so it is okay to say that the two do not overlap.So, what about the missing part?At this time, it is the turn of the key theme of "other" to appear.With "Other" set, we next come up with secondary themes while assuming a specific case.

For example, continuing the previous example, A's house is leaking.In recalling the situation at that time, we naturally place the actions of A under the key theme, in other words, the actions of A are specific sub-themes.

First of all, "discovering water leakage" can be placed under "condition control"; if it is found that the cause of water leakage is "the roof tiles were deflected due to previous earthquakes", it can be placed under "cause identification"; Move back to its original position" can be placed under "Repair".Is this the end?In fact, A has other actions to take.When A discovered the water leak at the beginning, she quickly took the washbasin and put it under the leak to catch water to prevent the damage from expanding.Under what theme, then, should this action be grouped?This action is neither situation control nor cause determination nor repair.Finally, it can only be placed under the sub-topic "Other".

To give another example, A once fell while riding a bicycle and broke his wrist.At that time, in order to be able to ride the steep uphill relatively easily, A rode the bicycle in a snaking manner and fell down.In the end, A went to the hospital for "repairs" and put a cast on his wrist.However, when she fell, in order to prevent the situation from getting worse, he had already tied a piece of wood to her wrist to fix it.This action does not qualify as status control, cause determination, or repair and is therefore classified under "Other".

While thinking about specific cases like this, while listing sub-themes, the "other" parts gradually increased.Then, the essence of the key theme of "other" emerges.As far as the aforementioned examples are concerned, the essence of "other" is "emergency treatment".This treatment is to prevent further damage until the cause is identified.This way, it becomes possible to know what key themes we are missing, and the overall analysis becomes more MECE compliant.

Unique insights are usually hidden in the "other" category
Indeed, with the key theme of "emergency handling" in place, the missing parts of the pyramid structure were reduced.However, we cannot rest on our laurels.It is not easy to prevent omissions, we must continue to search and stick to the end.

We went back to the water leakage incident at A’s house. After she moved the roof tiles back to their original position, she completed the fault repair. Next, A entrusted the security inspection of the roof tiles to a certain construction company. This action is to prevent the house from leaking again. .In addition, after A fell down on the bike, when she encountered a steep slope, she stopped snaking, but got down and led the bike up the slope. This action is to prevent her from falling again in the future.

The actions of these secondary topics do not belong to key topics such as situation control, cause identification, repair, emergency treatment, etc., so they are summarized in others first.Can you now see the essence of the key theme of "other"?These actions are all strategies to prevent the same mistakes from happening again in the future, that is, "prevention from happening again."In this way, the overall analysis is more in line with MECE, especially the comprehensiveness of collection is improved.

Copywriting is not roast meat, "Frost's Descent" is a taboo
The composition of the copy should be clear and in line with MECE. In other words, it is necessary to avoid writing a "frost" type of copy.The so-called "Frost's Descent" refers to the most representative high-grade beef.Why is Frostfall Beef a high-end product?One reason is that the beef is relatively rare and expensive to produce, but the most important reason is its tenderness.

Why is the meat of Frost Beef fresh and tender?Because its lean meat is full of fat.40% of Frost Beef is fat, and since [-]% is pure butter, it is of course soft and tender.Regardless of the health evaluation here, common sense tells us that Frost's Beef is a high-end product.

Although Shuang Jiang is a high-grade beef, I have to say that it is a low-grade beef in terms of copywriting.In terms of copywriting, "Frost's Fall" means that various themes are scattered everywhere.

For example, in a copy about business strategy, it is full of bits and pieces of information about the company. I thought it should be about the channel, but I didn’t expect to talk about my company.Then, I thought that the following should be an explanation about competition, but it turned out to be about access.Afterwards, they brought information about their own company and market conditions.Then, there are channels, own companies and markets.The reader is taken dizzy and dazzled, and this kind of copywriting does not consider the reader at all.

A good copy should have a clear theme.Meat is meat, fat is fat, and bones are bones.Using the aforementioned example, the analysis of your own company, competition analysis, channel analysis, market analysis, etc. should not be scattered everywhere, but should be assembled into one theme.

It is easy to design information by conceiving the theme pyramid first

Prepare the analysis framework of "no omission, no repetition" in advance, which is helpful for the production of information pyramid.The reason is that, in the pyramid structure, these MECE-compliant analysis frameworks (possibly off-the-shelf frameworks) represent that the key topics prepared for a specific main topic are quite complete.So, you can complete the information pyramid simply by placing each piece of information under an individual container (that is, a key topic).

In other words, using the analysis framework of MECE, it is easy to place information in groups that are “not omitted or repeated” for subject categories.

While this approach does not guarantee that the information content you design will be appropriate, it can avoid major gaps or duplications in the analysis, which is a major advantage. MECE is like using an off-the-shelf analytical framework, the more you have the better for you.

However, when actually thinking about individual businesses, it is usually difficult to use the ready-made analysis framework one by one, and it may be necessary to reset it.In this case, you must continue to ask and answer yourself within the time limit: "Am I doing this without omission or repetition?" At this time, many ready-made knowledge of the analysis framework in your pocket can also be used as Reference.So knowing more is definitely beneficial and harmless.In any case, it is easier to design a message with a well-prepared topic in advance than with no preparation at all.

(End of this chapter)