How to Write Effectively on Slack or Email

Barbara Minto, a former McKinsey consultant, developed a principle that changed how I write: ideas should always form a pyramid under a single thought. Lead with the answer. Then support it.

The contrast is stark. Compare two responses to "How is your progress on X?"

Ineffective: A paragraph explaining what's been done, what's in progress, what's blocked, and eventually arriving at the answer.

Effective: "It's almost done. Just need to check the campaign date with the marketing team."

Busy readers don't read top-to-bottom. They scan for the point. Give them the point first.

The Three-Step Framework

Step 1: Start with the answer. Lead with your recommendation or conclusion. Before doing that, make sure you actually understood the question — Kobe Bryant had a philosophy about clarifying ambiguous requests before acting, because the cost of clarification is much lower than the cost of doing the wrong thing.

Step 2: Group supporting arguments. Organize 3-4 supporting reasons using inductive reasoning. Vincent Wu, a Google PM, notes that three supporting points is the sweet spot for reader comprehension — enough to be convincing, not so many that it becomes a wall of text.

Step 3: Present ideas logically. Rank arguments by importance, or use the SCQA framework (Situation, Complexity, Question, Answer) to build a narrative that leads the reader to the same conclusion you've reached.

A Practical Example

Instead of: "We've been working with contractors for design and it's been causing delays. There's also a cost issue. And the quality isn't always consistent. So I think we should consider bringing this in-house."

Write: "We should build an in-house design team. Current reliance on contractors is causing delays, increasing costs, and producing inconsistent quality."

The conclusion is the first sentence. The evidence follows. The reader can stop reading after sentence one if they agree, or read on for the reasoning if they don't.