The Agatha Christie Code: What we can learn about business strategy from the best selling novelist of all time

Outsold only by the Bible, Agatha Christie's crime novels have sold over 2 billion copies. For fiction written in English, only Shakespeare comes close in total sales, but he has had a four hundred year head start.

In more than eighty novels, Agatha Christie held readers in suspense as they tried to use their 'little grey cells' to deduce the villain in a series of nasty murders. Over the years, many theories have emerged that seek to explain the secret to Christie's success.

The 2005 documentary, The Agatha Christie Code, used text analysis to try to explain some of the mysteries of Christie's famed stories. Cognitive science recognises that the conscious human mind can only respond to a limited number of inputs at one time. This number is said to be seven, plus or minus two. In theory it means that no one can hold more than nine ideas simultaneously in their conscious mind. In The Agatha Christie Code, the theory was put forward that Agatha Christie always had at least 10 threads to her stories. This meant that it was impossible for the reader to keep track of them all - a way to maintain the mystery and suspense.

Whether Agatha Christie consciously wrote in this way, we will probably never know. However, it's an important reminder to be aware of the limitations of the conscious mind when designing your business strategy. A strategy should not be an unsolvable mystery. Having a 55 point plan for growth might be fantastic, but nobody can remember them all. To be effective strategy needs to be internalised. This means that you should limit your areas of focus to fewer than nine. I recommend keeping them to between five and seven, because nine is the upper limit and can't be reached by everyone.

In my own business, I have four key focus areas. Recently, I've been working with a client and we've narrowed theirs down to six. In fact the first three are a mirror of the second three, so there are really only three to remember. Everybody in the company can internalise these three things, everyone can then apply them to their daily work. While there is still a step to take between remembering an idea and applying it, there's really no future for a strategy that can't be comprehended by the conscious mind.

To refine your vision and direction and design a strategy that isn't an unsolvable mystery, contact Teak Yew.