Knowing Where to Press

There is a story often told in creative circles about a designer who sketched a logo on a napkin, slid it across the table, and sent an invoice that ran into seven figures. The sketch itself took moments. The value did not. The client understood that they weren’t paying for the napkin or the ink, but for the decades of thinking, learning, refining, and discarding that made it possible for the right idea to appear so quickly.

The story endures because it challenges a common misunderstanding. We often confuse the speed of an action with its worth. When something looks simple, we assume it must have been easy.

A more documented example comes from CitiBank. Following a major merger, the organisation commissioned Pentagram to design a new logo. In the briefing meeting, Paula Scher drew the now-familiar umbrella mark almost immediately. When the scale of the fee was later questioned, how could something created so quickly justify such cost, her response was telling. It took thirty seconds to draw, she said, but thirty years to know how to draw it.

In both cases, the value lay not in the moment of execution, but in the depth of understanding behind it.

These stories resonate because they reveal how expertise actually works. At its best, it looks effortless. But that effortlessness is earned through years of pattern recognition, judgement, and learning what not to do as much as what to do.

That same pattern appears far beyond design or engineering. It shows up anywhere deep knowledge is expressed through precise, minimal action, including in the body itself.

Physiotherapy offers a useful parallel. From the outside, it can appear deceptively simple: pressure applied to muscle, tension released, movement improved. It’s easy to assume the technique could be copied. But effective physiotherapy depends on knowing exactly where to apply pressure, how much to apply, and when not to apply it at all.

That knowledge is built through years of training in anatomy, biomechanics, and movement science, followed by extensive supervised practice. Every body is different. Every injury has a history. Without that understanding, imitation at best wastes time and effort, and at worst causes real harm. The visible action is only the final step in a long process of learning and judgement.

Leadership works in much the same way.

From the outside, strong leadership can look straightforward. A clear decision. A timely intervention. A calm response under pressure. But, like the napkin sketch or the physiotherapist’s hands, what matters is not the action itself, but the understanding that informs it. Knowing when to act, where to apply pressure, and when restraint will do more good than force.

In schools, this distinction is critical. Leadership is often judged by what can be seen; meetings held, initiatives launched, decisions announced. Yet the most effective leaders understand that impact rarely comes from doing more everywhere. It comes from doing the right thing in the right place. Applying pressure indiscriminately rarely improves culture; applied precisely, it can transform it.

This is why borrowed solutions so often disappoint. Without the same depth of contextual understanding, what worked elsewhere may misfire completely. The surface action can be copied, but the judgement behind it cannot.

Strong cultures are shaped by leaders who recognise the difference between cost and value. They respect expertise not because it looks impressive, but because it has been earned. They understand that what appears simple is often the result of long, patient work beneath the surface.

In the end, leadership is not about how quickly something is done.

It is about knowing exactly where to press, and why.