You can’t argue with success like Elmore Leonard’s (40 novels including over a dozen best-sellers and a bundle of movies over a 50-year career.) So, when he gives his formula for success — "I leave out the parts people skip," you have to take notice.

As I did yesterday at the Personal Democracy Forum when Tucker Eskew, former director of the White House Office of Global Communications, quoted Leonard’s formula as being behind the very notable success of the voter outreach effort of the Bush Cheney ‘04 campaign.

Thinking about it in these disparate contexts, I saw that this same principle is also at the heart of DROOMing and building a thriving business. Managing your company or raising money, the key is to focus on what matters most.

For example, as I say in one of my DROOM primers, when raising money don’t stake your success on PowerPoint or other bells and whistles. Financiers are smart enough to see through a fancy presentation and recognize when the business plan behind it is flawed. So, concentrate on the fundamentals — only the points you and your audience really need — and present them in a straightforward, unembellished manner.

That doesn’t mean the presentation has no life. It means that no amount of filler will compensate for an uninteresting story and you can turn an interesting one into a bore. You don’t want to lose your audience any more than Elmore Leonard does.