The Art of Procter & Gamble Memos

Hi! Welcome. Today we are going to talk about Procter & Gamble one-page memos. The concept for P&G one-page memos was introduced clear back in the 1940s by then-CEO Richard Dupree. And the concept behind it was simple. He said, you know, I can't understand difficult things, complicated things. I can only understand simple things that can be broken down into a step-by-step fashion. Then I can do something with it. The P&G memo became the codification tool within P&G in which everyone communicates. And so it's done in a way that is simple and easy to understand. And so everything is written in that way. And when I first got to P&G, my first day on the job, my brand manager says, Hey, we've got a meeting coming up here this afternoon. Why don't you take notes? and then turn in a summary memo. I said, okay, great. So I go to a meeting, take copious notes, write it up into a memo, turn it in, and Tuesday morning it's back on my desk with red ink all over it. Okay. So I fix it, turn it in, and Wednesday morning it's back on my desk, more red ink all over it. And I'm looking at it and I'm going, wait a minute, I said the same thing that he's saying, and he's just formatting it differently. Okay, so I fix it again, turn it in Thursday morning, back again, fix it again Friday morning, back again, and finally Friday morning I walked into his office and said, Hey, I don't want to be the first guy ever fired in the first week for not being able to write a memo. And he just cracks up laughing and he goes, welcome to P&G. This is the firewalk that everybody has to go on. And we have a very particular way of riding within the company. And what I've been trying to teach you is a rudimentary way of getting to there. But you're going to go to school next week. You're going to go to Procter & Gamble University. You're going to learn how to ride in P&G style. So don't sweat it. It's fine. Everybody has to do this little exercise. Okay, so I went to school, learned how to write it, and I've been using that format for my entire life. And I've been teaching it to the people that worked for me for my entire career. And I never realized the impact of it until really in 2017. And in 2017, in the spring, I went back to Los Angeles, and we had a reunion of all the people that I'd worked with at Disney. And the kid that was my first... hired at Disney. His name was Gordon Ho. Really sharp kid. MBA out of Stanford. And Gordon, I hadn't seen in about 15 years. And he comes walking up to me and he says, hey, I never thanked you for teaching me how to write. That's been the most valuable and useful skill I ever learned in my career. And I thought, you know, that's kind of an interesting way to start a conversation with somebody I haven't seen in 15 years. Wouldn't you say, hey, good to see you. You look old. But no, that's how he led. And so, you know, I was thinking about that. And when I got back to Logan, I recounted that story to a gal by the name of Eliza Culver, who was then at the time the president of Huntsman Marketing Association. And she said, well, why don't you teach us how to write like that? And I said, oh, I never thought of that. So, okay, I guess I can. And so I put together a class and taught the Huntsman Marketing Association students how to write. right in the P&G style. Eliza had scored an internship with Procter & Gamble, or with General Mills. She was the first General Mills intern out of Utah State. And so a few weeks later, she finds herself in Philadelphia, and first... on the job, she gets asked to write a memo. And so she wrote it in PNG, one-page memo format. She turns it in to the division president. The next morning he calls her into his office and he says, that's the best written memo I've ever seen in my life. Would you please teach everyone else here how to write like that? " And so here's this little intern one week onto the job, and she is now teaching the entire Philadelphia sales division of General Mills how to write in P&G one-page memo style. So I thought, maybe we ought to start teaching it here. So I incorporated it in 2018 into the Fundamentals of Marketing course and the MBA course that I teach. And so, you know, the thing about it is it's clear... and concise. And if you can learn to write in PNG style, you learn how to think. The memo becomes a knowledge codification tool, a way to present ideas, arguments, ...recommendations in a language and style that everyone can understand. So, there are different pieces of the P&G memo. You know, it requires you to think from the perspective of the reader. You need to spin yourself into the chair of the reader and think of it as what would this person need to know in order to make an informed decision. Second, you'll want to focus the writing on the most relevant things. and eliminate the irrelevant. It's got to be really focused and really precise and concise writing. Because when we think well, we write well. And this is just a tool to help us think well. Because, you know, in college, a lot of your professors do you a great disservice, in my opinion. They say, write a five-page memo on this or write a five-page report. And I've read those five-page reports. And the thinking goes up and down and all around and looks back. I mean, it's not cohesive. You just blather onto a page for five pages in order to get up to the number of words. And so when we write in P&G memo style, we have to eliminate 90% of that. We can only communicate the most important things. And that's kind of the beauty of the memo. So we're going to talk about the different pieces of the memo. And then I've given you examples that you should look through and read through to see exactly how to do it. how a P&G memo is formatted. But you always start the memo by addressing it to the person who, you know, it needs to make the decision, the decision maker. But you address it in a way where you use their initials and not their name. So their first initial and last name. So if someone was writing me a memo, they would address it to E. Schultz. Or if you know their middle initials, you would write it to E.D. Schultz, because Dean is my middle name. But you don't put the first name on there. And we do that for gender neutrality. Because you don't know if you see E. Schultz, you don't know if that's Eric Schultz or Eliza Schultz or Edwina Schultz. It doesn't matter. It's E. Schultz. So we do that in a gender neutral kind of way. Then there's a subject line where you write subject and here's what the memo is all about. Then you've got an opening paragraph and in the opening paragraph there should only be two to three sentences and they're short, precise, and concise. The first sentence states the purpose of the memo. The second sentence says what you're asking for or what you're reporting. And the third sentence states the benefit to the company is going to be received from Google. You know when you write memos you're typically only doing them for one of two purposes. Either you're asking for something or you're reporting something. And this format works really well for both of those objectives. After the opening paragraph, if you've written it well, the reader should not have to read any further because they know what you want, what it is that you're reporting, and what the benefit is to the company in just three sentences. But we're going to go ahead and finish the memo. The next section is called a background. section. And in the background you write a short paragraph where you describe what has led us up to this point today for the point of this memo. Because a lot of times your senior management, they haven't been involved in the process. You know, they know that you're working on something, but they don't know what's been going on on a day-to-day basis and what has led us to this point. So you want to quickly summarize the background as to, you know, how we got to today and why we're doing this now. The next part of the memo is the most critical. And it is called either key benefits, key insights, key learnings. You can call it whatever you want as long as key is the first word. And key benefits, key insights, key learnings. And in this section, you get three bullet points that you can make that drive home either the key information or the recommended Three things. You can't write five, you can't write ten. Three. And the strategy behind that is that if you can't convince me with your best three shots, you're not going to convince me with ten. So your best three better be your best three punches coming out of the gate. So you're going to write those key benefits or key insights. One, two, and three. You're going to bullet point them. You're going to number them. Look at the examples. so you know exactly how to format those. But it needs to have an opening sentence with a bold and an underlined first sentence and then a couple of more sentences of context. And then the final section is called next steps. And in next step. Perhaps you ask for what's going to happen now. What do you want the reader to do with this information? Will you approve this money? Will you approve this? Do you want us to move forward with this project? What do you want us to do? So the reader knows exactly what is being asked, and there's no open-ended, well, what did you send this to me for? At P&G, everything is done in a P&G one-page memo, whether you're asking for a $20 million advertising campaign or a $250,000 focus group. You're asking for things and you're reporting your Nielsen data. Everything's in a one-page memo. And so we're going to learn how to write in this format because it's focused clarity of thought and action. It's concise and precise thinking and writing. And many of your professors are going to appreciate it. if you can write in P&G One Faith's fashion for their classes. Some professors are now requiring it. And so it's a good thing to learn how to know, and it's a good thing to learn how to write in this style, because I'm telling you it will be the best thing that you'll ever do in your life because it gives you a focus and a way of formatting your thinking and your writing that leads you into clarity. And so we're going to do this assignment right now. Your task is to write a... P&G one-page memo. It can be on anything. You can write it to your roommate complaining about you with recommendations for cleaning up the kitchen. You can write it to your one of your professors you know recommending that they change their grading rubric. You can write it to your roommate or your boyfriend or girlfriend telling them to get off the stick and propose or you're going to hit the road. You can write it on anything you want. I don't really care. Read through the exam. I've given you a bunch of examples, memos, that you can read through. Look at the format. The format is the key here. That's all I'm going to be grading you on is did you follow the format precisely. Attention to detail is critical here. Pay attention to detail. Write precisely, concisely, and in the right format. Make sure everything's formatted from what needs to be bolded, what needs to be bolded and underlined, and what's... sections need to be highlighted, how the headings go. Make sure everything is in proper order and pay attention to the detail because that's where most people lose points on this assignment is they get sloppy. And on this assignment I demand detail and clarity and focus and attention to detail. So please write it in a way that follows the examples that I've given you. There shouldn't be any question on what what the requirement is. So have fun, write a memo, look forward to seeing what you got.

Hi! Welcome. Today we are going to talk about Procter & Gamble one-page memos.

The concept for P&G one-page memos was introduced clear back in the 1940s by then-CEO Richard Dupree. And the concept behind it was simple. He said, you know, I can't understand difficult things, complicated things. I can only understand simple things that can be broken down into a step-by-step fashion.

Then I can do something with it. The P&G memo became the codification tool within P&G in which everyone communicates. And so it's done in a way that is simple and easy to understand. And so everything is written in that way.

And when I first got to P&G, my first day on the job, my brand manager says, Hey, we've got a meeting coming up here this afternoon. Why don't you take notes? and then turn in a summary memo. I said, okay, great.

So I go to a meeting, take copious notes, write it up into a memo, turn it in, and Tuesday morning it's back on my desk with red ink all over it. Okay. So I fix it, turn it in, and Wednesday morning it's back on my desk, more red ink all over it. And I'm looking at it and I'm going, wait a minute, I said the same thing that he's saying, and he's just formatting it differently.

Okay, so I fix it again, turn it in Thursday morning, back again, fix it again Friday morning, back again, and finally Friday morning I walked into his office and said, Hey, I don't want to be the first guy ever fired in the first week for not being able to write a memo. And he just cracks up laughing and he goes, welcome to P&G. This is the firewalk that everybody has to go on.

And we have a very particular way of riding within the company. And what I've been trying to teach you is a rudimentary way of getting to there. But you're going to go to school next week. You're going to go to Procter & Gamble University. You're going to learn how to ride in P&G style.

So don't sweat it. It's fine. Everybody has to do this little exercise. Okay, so I went to school, learned how to write it, and I've been using that format for my entire life.

And I've been teaching it to the people that worked for me for my entire career. And I never realized the impact of it until really in 2017. And in 2017, in the spring, I went back to Los Angeles, and we had a reunion of all the people that I'd worked with at Disney. And the kid that was my first...

hired at Disney. His name was Gordon Ho. Really sharp kid.

MBA out of Stanford. And Gordon, I hadn't seen in about 15 years. And he comes walking up to me and he says, hey, I never thanked you for teaching me how to write. That's been the most valuable and useful skill I ever learned in my career.

And I thought, you know, that's kind of an interesting way to start a conversation with somebody I haven't seen in 15 years. Wouldn't you say, hey, good to see you. You look old.

But no, that's how he led. And so, you know, I was thinking about that. And when I got back to Logan, I recounted that story to a gal by the name of Eliza Culver, who was then at the time the president of Huntsman Marketing Association. And she said, well, why don't you teach us how to write like that?

And I said, oh, I never thought of that. So, okay, I guess I can. And so I put together a class and taught the Huntsman Marketing Association students how to write. right in the P&G style.

Eliza had scored an internship with Procter & Gamble, or with General Mills. She was the first General Mills intern out of Utah State. And so a few weeks later, she finds herself in Philadelphia, and first...

on the job, she gets asked to write a memo. And so she wrote it in PNG, one-page memo format. She turns it in to the division president. The next morning he calls her into his office and he says, that's the best written memo I've ever seen in my life. Would you please teach everyone else here how to write like that?

" And so here's this little intern one week onto the job, and she is now teaching the entire Philadelphia sales division of General Mills how to write in P&G one-page memo style. So I thought, maybe we ought to start teaching it here. So I incorporated it in 2018 into the Fundamentals of Marketing course and the MBA course that I teach. And so, you know, the thing about it is it's clear... and concise. And if you can learn to write in PNG style, you learn how to think. The memo becomes a knowledge codification tool, a way to present ideas, arguments, ...recommendations in a language and style that everyone can understand. So, there are different pieces of the P&G memo. You know, it requires you to think from the perspective of the reader. You need to spin yourself into the chair of the reader and think of it as what would this person need to know in order to make an informed decision. Second, you'll want to focus the writing on the most relevant things. and eliminate the irrelevant. It's got to be really focused and really precise and concise writing. Because when we think well, we write well. And this is just a tool to help us think well. Because, you know, in college, a lot of your professors do you a great disservice, in my opinion. They say, write a five-page memo on this or write a five-page report. And I've read those five-page reports. And the thinking goes up and down and all around and looks back. I mean, it's not cohesive. You just blather onto a page for five pages in order to get up to the number of words. And so when we write in P&G memo style, we have to eliminate 90% of that. We can only communicate the most important things. And that's kind of the beauty of the memo. So we're going to talk about the different pieces of the memo. And then I've given you examples that you should look through and read through to see exactly how to do it. how a P&G memo is formatted. But you always start the memo by addressing it to the person who, you know, it needs to make the decision, the decision maker. But you address it in a way where you use their initials and not their name. So their first initial and last name. So if someone was writing me a memo, they would address it to E. Schultz. Or if you know their middle initials, you would write it to E.D. Schultz, because Dean is my middle name. But you don't put the first name on there. And we do that for gender neutrality. Because you don't know if you see E. Schultz, you don't know if that's Eric Schultz or Eliza Schultz or Edwina Schultz. It doesn't matter. It's E. Schultz. So we do that in a gender neutral kind of way. Then there's a subject line where you write subject and here's what the memo is all about. Then you've got an opening paragraph and in the opening paragraph there should only be two to three sentences and they're short, precise, and concise. The first sentence states the purpose of the memo. The second sentence says what you're asking for or what you're reporting. And the third sentence states the benefit to the company is going to be received from Google. You know when you write memos you're typically only doing them for one of two purposes. Either you're asking for something or you're reporting something. And this format works really well for both of those objectives. After the opening paragraph, if you've written it well, the reader should not have to read any further because they know what you want, what it is that you're reporting, and what the benefit is to the company in just three sentences. But we're going to go ahead and finish the memo. The next section is called a background. section. And in the background you write a short paragraph where you describe what has led us up to this point today for the point of this memo. Because a lot of times your senior management, they haven't been involved in the process. You know, they know that you're working on something, but they don't know what's been going on on a day-to-day basis and what has led us to this point. So you want to quickly summarize the background as to, you know, how we got to today and why we're doing this now. The next part of the memo is the most critical. And it is called either key benefits, key insights, key learnings. You can call it whatever you want as long as key is the first word. And key benefits, key insights, key learnings. And in this section, you get three bullet points that you can make that drive home either the key information or the recommended Three things. You can't write five, you can't write ten. Three. And the strategy behind that is that if you can't convince me with your best three shots, you're not going to convince me with ten. So your best three better be your best three punches coming out of the gate. So you're going to write those key benefits or key insights. One, two, and three. You're going to bullet point them. You're going to number them. Look at the examples. so you know exactly how to format those. But it needs to have an opening sentence with a bold and an underlined first sentence and then a couple of more sentences of context. And then the final section is called next steps. And in next step. Perhaps you ask for what's going to happen now. What do you want the reader to do with this information? Will you approve this money? Will you approve this? Do you want us to move forward with this project? What do you want us to do? So the reader knows exactly what is being asked, and there's no open-ended, well, what did you send this to me for? At P&G, everything is done in a P&G one-page memo, whether you're asking for a $20 million advertising campaign or a $250,000 focus group. You're asking for things and you're reporting your Nielsen data. Everything's in a one-page memo. And so we're going to learn how to write in this format because it's focused clarity of thought and action. It's concise and precise thinking and writing. And many of your professors are going to appreciate it. if you can write in P&G One Faith's fashion for their classes. Some professors are now requiring it. And so it's a good thing to learn how to know, and it's a good thing to learn how to write in this style, because I'm telling you it will be the best thing that you'll ever do in your life because it gives you a focus and a way of formatting your thinking and your writing that leads you into clarity. And so we're going to do this assignment right now. Your task is to write a... P&G one-page memo. It can be on anything. You can write it to your roommate complaining about you with recommendations for cleaning up the kitchen. You can write it to your one of your professors you know recommending that they change their grading rubric. You can write it to your roommate or your boyfriend or girlfriend telling them to get off the stick and propose or you're going to hit the road. You can write it on anything you want. I don't really care. Read through the exam. I've given you a bunch of examples, memos, that you can read through. Look at the format. The format is the key here. That's all I'm going to be grading you on is did you follow the format precisely. Attention to detail is critical here. Pay attention to detail. Write precisely, concisely, and in the right format. Make sure everything's formatted from what needs to be bolded, what needs to be bolded and underlined, and what's... sections need to be highlighted, how the headings go. Make sure everything is in proper order and pay attention to the detail because that's where most people lose points on this assignment is they get sloppy. And on this assignment I demand detail and clarity and focus and attention to detail. So please write it in a way that follows the examples that I've given you. There shouldn't be any question on what what the requirement is. So have fun, write a memo, look forward to seeing what you got.

Transcript for:The Art of Procter & Gamble Memos

Transcript for:
The Art of Procter & Gamble Memos