One Size, Federer, and Moon Checklist
Focus your identity, improve your strengths, and remain open to novelty
- Difficulty
- Advanced
- Time to result
- ~ongoing to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 96%
This three-part checklist uses simple images to balance focus, refinement, and adaptability. The one-size-fits-all clothing tag warns against serving everyone without a clear identity or advantage. Roger Federer represents knowing one's distinctive game, improving it over years, and making selective changes without chasing every new fashion. The moon landing represents imagination: the absence of precedent does not prove an outcome is impossible. Used together, the images create a strategic review. Clarify what you do, strengthen the capabilities that make it distinctive, and remain willing to adapt when new realities emerge. The model avoids both shapeless expansion and rigid attachment to the past.
Origin
For Bain Capital Credit's twentieth anniversary, Jonathan Lavine wrote investors a letter using pictures of a one-size-fits-all tag, Roger Federer, and the moon landing to summarize three lessons.
Core principles
- 01You cannot be all things to all people
- 02Durable advantage begins with knowing what you do well
- 03Improvement should strengthen the core rather than chase every trend
- 04Unprecedented outcomes remain possible
How to run it
- 1
Reject one-size-fits-all strategy
Define the specific job, market, customer, or investment domain you are equipped to serve.
Pro tip Write a clear statement of what you deliberately will not do.
Watch out Broad ambition without boundaries dilutes resources and accountability.
- 2
Name your game
Identify the strengths, methods, and values that form your distinctive core.
Pro tip Use evidence from repeated success rather than aspirational labels.
Watch out Do not confuse familiarity with genuine advantage.
- 3
Improve the core
Invest in technique, systems, and practice that make the distinctive capability stronger.
Pro tip Track improvement against outcomes that matter to customers or investors.
Watch out Copying fashionable tactics can weaken coherence.
- 4
Make selective tweaks
Adopt new tools or practices when they complement the core and address a real change in conditions.
Pro tip Test adaptations at limited scale before making them foundational.
Watch out Refusing every change turns identity into rigidity.
- 5
Challenge precedent
Ask what may become possible despite never having occurred before.
Pro tip Use scenarios to explore novelty without assuming it will happen.
Watch out Imagination is not evidence; pair it with adaptation and risk controls.
In the wild
Roger Federer retains the technique and one-handed backhand central to his game despite pressure to imitate power-focused competitors. Over time he adopts a somewhat larger racket and adds capabilities, but he improves his own game rather than chasing each tennis fad.
→ His strategy evolves without abandoning the identity supporting long-term success.
A specialist consultancy declines unrelated services, improves its strongest delivery method, and pilots an AI tool that reinforces that method. It also explores a new market whose emergence lacks historical precedent.
→ The firm remains differentiated while adapting to a new commercial reality.
Common mistakes
Trying to serve everyone
A one-size-fits-all offer obscures the organization's reason for being and weakens execution.
Chasing every new fashion
Constantly replacing proven strengths with fashionable techniques prevents cumulative improvement.
Using identity as an excuse
Knowing the core does not justify ignoring useful adaptations or unprecedented changes in the environment.
Is it for you?
Best for
It is best for investors, businesses, and professionals refining a durable strategy in changing conditions.
Not ideal for
It is not ideal when the existing core capability is obsolete and requires fundamental reinvention.
From the transcript
“you can't be all things to all people. So um, no, what know what it is that you're doing and and and do that?”
“But at his core, he knows who he is, he knows what he's good at, and that is what has been the key to his…”
“Just because you've never seen it before doesn't mean it can't happen, and that, Um, you need imagination and you need to be able to…”
From the episode
Jonathan S. Lavine on Private Equity Investing (Podcast)
Jonathan S. Lavine