Minto Pyramid - Adam Amran, Untools

This resource first appeared in issue #114 on 19 Mar 2022 and has tags Strategy: Working with Decision Makers, Strategy: Managing Up, Strategy: Working with Stakeholders, Working With A Research Community: Communications Tools

Amran gives a very clear formula here for emails that you also see in advice for briefing boards (or in our case, e.g., scientific advisory committee.). Start with a one-sentence paragraph of the conclusion (or the ask); then a listing of the key arguments; then the supporting details. I’d add that the subject line should reflect the conclusion/ask.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this recently. I’m generally ok about writing to-the-point, skimmable emails. But that skill may have atrophied a bit recently. In my previous job, I didn’t send a lot of emails (we used slack internally mostly). When I did send them, as a manager and as a big fish in a small pond, I… could kind of assume my emails would be carefully read. In retrospect I kind of got lazy and leaned on that, which I now feel sheepish about.

I’m in now an individual contributor in a very email-heavy organization. I can see very clearly the effects of getting lazy about sending bottom-line-up-front emails. I’ve tried to communicate some points via email to some very busy account managers in the past couple weeks, and some of the points just did not get across. So it’s time to up my game again.

Not every email lends itself to this formula, of course, but sticking to bottom-line-up-front is a good general principle.