👋 Hi, I’m Jeff. I write weekly about lessons I’ve learned leading product teams and working to lead well in chaotic environments, drawing on 25+ years of building.
1:1 exec coaching: I work with a small number of senior product leaders one-on-one as a coach. These are typically six-month engagements. If that’s you or someone you know, let’s talk.
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People often ask me how to communicate more clearly with senior leaders. Some quick thoughts:
My learning on this topic came when I was in a Group Product Manager role at LinkedIn. I once answered a CEO’s direct question in a meeting for 2-3 minutes before realizing (I had some help on this) that I hadn’t actually answered it. No bueno.
It was a weekly leadership meeting with Jeff Weiner, LinkedIn’s CEO at the time. Each product group shared a quick weekly update. I had recently landed this role and was leading Sales Navigator — a ~$250M product line growing quickly. It was one of my first few times in that room. On this day I covered my part partnering with my sales counterpart. So far so good.
But then Jeff asked me a direct follow-up question. I knew the answer and it wasn’t great news. I defaulted to pre-describing lots of context that eventually led to the information he was looking for. All good stuff except I took too long to get to the point.
Jeff was visibly impatient—and it showed. We moved on. I didn’t feel great.
Here’s what made the difference. A few minutes after the meeting, several teammates in the room separately texted and called me to kindly and directly give me advice to better handle questions in that room.
TLDR: “Get to the answer first. Then offer relevant supporting info IF NEEDED. Got it?”
Got it.
One teammate later sent me a link to Barbara Minto’s Pyramid Principle, a consulting version of the same idea.
I’ve since adopted my own simpler version, which I’ve shared with people across a few companies. I usually get stares, as if it can’t be that simple. It is.
Here’s the 3-Step Framework:
Step 0. Adopt a simple rule: Answer first. Always. I’m cheating with Step 0; it’s a hint more than a step. Here’s what that looks like in practice:
Step 1: Give one sentence of context. Enough to frame what’s coming next. No more. It will sound insufficient. It just works in these settings.
Step 2: Give the answer. Start with the conclusion. Then stop talking. Make the answer yours. Own it, and share it with conviction. Conviction builds confidence, even when people disagree. Talking too much erodes that confidence.
Step 3: Be prepared to support your Step 2 POV with up to three reasons. Not four. Not five. Three. That’s it.
Bonus points if your support reasons each come with a nugget of portable data simple enough that the room will repeat that data in some other room they go into later. Example? If you hear other people re-stating a data nugget you used to support a simple answer, that means your thinking is breaking through.
Why does this work?
First, the higher someone goes in an organization, the less patience there is for warm-up, throat clearing or any kind of non-essential communication.
Most leaders are managing 100+ emails, 50+ Slack threads, back-to-back meetings, and competing priorities. Almost anything they read or hear is usually delivered with 35–50% more words than needed. People are drowning in communication. Much of it is overthought. Sharper and simpler is rare and breaks through.
Your job isn’t to narrate your thinking process. Your job is to reduce cognitive load. Cut through the noise.
Make what you say land simply. Think like a political candidate. “It’s the economy, stupid.” Try for something that simple.
Try it this week. If someone asks you a question, give one sentence of context and then the answer. Then pause. If they want more, they’ll ask.
What’s a communication habit you had to unlearn?
I hear this, and sometimes it's hard. There is an old maxim about writing: say what you're going to say, say it, and then say what you've said. It's even more true when communicating to the upper layers of an organization. Lead with the answer. I like the way you put it: make the answer yours and own it.
There is always the temptation to want to answer emotionally. One thing or another is uncertain or frustrating. There is a desire to share those feelings upward using context, if given the chance. That is not what the people above you want to know. They want an actionable response.
As a technical contributor, I also find that context can be difficult to correctly provide. How do you explain what is easy or what is hard? How do you correctly convey nuance in using vocabulary that may be misunderstood by someone who is less technical?