Every Program Needs A Theme...can your team articulate it easily?

In a recent HBR Interview, Francis Ford Coppola was asked:

When you get stuck creatively—if you don’t know where a script should go or how a movie should end—how do you get yourself unstuck?

Well, if my intuition and asking what feels better doesn’t give me the answer, I have a little exercise: What is the theme in a word or two? In The Conversation, it was privacy. In The Godfather, it was succession. I encourage my children to do the same, to break it all down: If you have that word, then when you reach an impasse, you just say: “Well, what does the theme tell me? Should it be this or should it be that?” And usually that will suggest to you which way to go and break the roadblock.

I was struck but how important it is that your complex program, project, or initiative has a theme that:

• captures the essence of what you are doing
• "travels well" through internal and external social media
• can be easily articulated by any team member