Let’s start with a little challenge.
Before you scroll further, look at the image below and count the number of times the letter F appears in the sentence. Take 5 seconds. Count carefully.
Ready? So, how many did you count?
Three? Four? Five? Six?
Almost every class looks like this:
- A few students confidently say 3
- Some say 4 or 5
- A couple say 6
- And one or two hesitate because they think there might be more
Then the reveal:
The correct answer is six.
And immediately I see the same reactions I had myself years ago, the re-reading, the disbelief, the little laugh, the “No way, I missed that!”.
I know the feeling.
Because the first time I personally did this exercise, I proudly counted… three.
The trainer asked,
“Who counted three?”
And I raised my hand with full confidence, only to realise seconds later how wrong I was.
I felt so stupid that I thought:
“Great. I should start every future class by passing on this beautiful moment of embarrassment.”
This is the part where my students usually start laughing 🙂 and then immediately start scanning the sentence again, hunting for the missing Fs.
But there is a deeper point behind the joke.
The task is simple. The execution is not.
The truth is very simple:
Human beings don’t fail because tasks are hard.
We fail because we rush.
Because we are not fully concentrated.
Because we haven’t yet learned a technique that gives us maximum certainty.
Even with a task this simple, our mind sees too much at once.
Too many letters.
Too much information.
We focus on the overall content.
We think about the meaning behind the sentence.
We drift away from the narrow task we were actually supposed to do.
And that is exactly when mistakes happen.
What’s even more interesting:
When you redo the exact same task but change how you do it, for example by circling every F on paper instead of just reading the sentence, the likelihood of success increases dramatically.
Once we understand how easily this happens, and once we learn the right techniques and methods, our results improve dramatically.
Not because the task becomes easier, but because our approach becomes better.
Now think bigger, companies, teams, projects.
Often what kills a project is not lack of effort, but lack of approach. Not the problem, but the method. Not the complexity, but the way we handle things.
That’s why project management, leadership, and teamwork all depend on something deep: awareness and technique.
This is management.
This is leadership.
This is project work.
This is everyday organisational reality.
Most failures in companies have nothing to do with intelligence or resources.
They happen because:
- We didn’t define the task clearly
- We assumed people “knew what we meant”
- We didn’t give the structure needed to succeed
- We treated a simple task casually instead of deliberately
The risk is not always complexity.
The risk comes as well from simple things done without method.
This is why the best managers aren’t the smartest people in the room.
They’re the ones who know how to:
- sharpen the problem,
- focus the team,
- remove ambiguity,
- and give people tools and clarity.
They understand that execution – not intention – determines outcomes.
What the Six Fs remind us
The six Fs are a tiny metaphor for a bigger truth:
If you want reliable outcomes, design reliable execution.
Even simple tasks deserve structure, clarity and method.
After you’ve missed half of the Fs once, you never unsee the lesson:
- Simple is not the same as safe
- Obvious tasks still need technique
- The human brain takes shortcuts, and shortcuts cost accuracy
- And without method, even easy jobs fail quietly
Understanding this changes how you lead, how you communicate, and how you run projects.
This is why I teach it.
Not to embarrass anyone.
Not to trick anyone.
But because every time I see students laugh, shake their heads, and re-count the Fs, I know the message landed:
If you want better outcomes, give people better methods.
If you want certainty, give structure.
If you want performance, design the execution, not just the intention.
Everything else, leadership, teamwork, projects, results, starts right there.