Bruce Whitfield’s ‘The One Thing’ is a great idea

Imagine that you were the president of South Africa. Now, put yourself in the corner office of the country and decide to simply change one thing. One thing only. And what would that be?

That’s the question Bruce Whitfield asked a hundred business leaders and influential South Africans. He then put a book together based on their responses. The One Thing is not just a book though. It’s a compendium of ideas, an exploration of notions and almost, an intellectual funnel of thinking that’s more relevant than ever to every South African.

The idea for the book came from a line in a speech he had heard a few years ago. The speaker told the audience: “When everything is a priority, nothing is a priority,”. The realisation dawned on him that there is a need for prioritisation in South Africa because the laundry list of what needs to get done, can be somewhat intimidating in its length.  “You can’t do everything at once, so you must make trade-offs. But how do you do it?” This thought led to the core of the book: if you had half an hour as president, what would be the one thing you’d do?

What is that ‘one thing’ you’d do?

Whitfield asked them all: what’s the one thing we need to fix to unlock South Africa’s potential?

“I sent out 120 WhatsApp’s to various influential people and business leaders and got over 100 replies,” Whitfield said. These responses formed the narrative backbone of the work, and while the answers varied, one theme emerged consistently: leadership. “It all boils down to people,” he emphasised. “Get the right people into the right jobs, doing the right things, and you can achieve almost anything.”

“I had Mteto Nyathi, Eskom’s chairman, at the book launch, and I asked him, ‘What’s the one thing?’ He initially said it wasn’t just one thing, but eventually, we distilled it down to leadership,” Whitfield said. He cited Nyathi as an example too, of how he used his influence to fix procurement issues and secure billions for diesel to repair broken power stations. “Without the right leadership, none of that would have been possible.”

The book examines ten key themes

The book is structured around ten key themes, but ultimately, Whitfield reiterated, it all comes down to people and leadership. “We need courageous decision-makers,” he said, quoting Nicki Newton-King, one of the book’s contributors. “We need people who are willing to make tough, uncomfortable trade-offs. But you can’t make those trade-offs without being transparent and explaining them to the public.”

One thing he realised while putting the work together was the tremendous amount of enthusiasm big business still has for the country. “There’s this narrative that big business is bad, that it’s full of greedy, money-grabbing people,” Whitfield said. “But that’s just not true. The people I’ve met working in large corporations are incredibly talented and decent.” And sure, there is a disparity between what the average South African earns verses captains of industry. But they are also the people who have steered companies along a somewhat teetering national ship, many times. “You can’t run a high-functioning business in a dysfunctional environment,” he noted, adding that this realisation has driven initiatives like government’s Operation Vulindlela, where business leaders have stepped up to help the country beyond their day jobs.

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Between the pages there is more than just a reflection on South Africa’s issues. It’s a call to action, said Whitfield. “If you don’t believe the future can be better than the present, why would you invest? Why would you take risks, start a business, or employ people?” he asked. To him, The One Thing is for South Africans who want to feel hopeful about the future, despite the challenges we all face. “The future is ours to create, and it all comes down to the choices we make today,” he added.

The future is yours to create

Whitfield also left space for readers to toy with the core question themselves. “I ask readers to write down their ‘one thing’ at the start of the book,” he explained. “Then, after they’ve read through the chapters and reflected on all the contributions, I leave space for them to write down their ‘one thing’ again at the end. It’s a painful and frustrating exercise, but it’s something we should all do.”

The One Thing is his third book and the first since stepping down from The Money Show on 702 after twenty years of broadcasting. Ditching the show did not leave a blank space in his days. “I thought I’d feel bereft, like losing a limb,” he said. “But I haven’t felt it yet. I realised I wasn’t going to get everything I wanted done if I kept committing six hours a day to the radio show.”

And he needed the time. Coordinating the contributions for his book was no small feat. “Even though I didn’t physically write every word, pulling together contributions from over 100 people was a massive task,” he said. “Coordinating a project like this, with the caliber of people involved, was an undertaking of note.”

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