Follow Through
Take the position at its word; add nothing; follow it until it breaks.
A brand rule applied to the doormat.
Seen in Jonathan Swift, A Modest Proposal, Dublin, 1729
Try it on your work
Take one rule from a brand guideline and apply it to every object in reach: the stapler, the bin, the doormat. Stop at the first object where the result is one the guideline's authors would refuse.
Take one sentence from a mission statement and write out what it requires if taken literally, each step following only from the one before. Stop at the first step its authors would refuse.
A group takes one stated value of its own organisation and plans a week run strictly by it, adding nothing. Stop at the first decision the group itself would refuse to take.
How it has been used
Take a brief, a rule or a slogan at its word and follow it with nothing added: the style guide applied to every surface in the building, the client's one value made to decide every detail, the policy read as if it had no exceptions. The move forbids bringing in a premise from outside: where the result looks absurd, the position's own premises put it there.
Where it leads
Grouped under Let me find out what holds up