The Minto Pyramid Principle: How to communicate effectively at your workplace?

86% of employees and executives cite the lack of effective collaboration and communication as the prime cause of workplace failures. On the contrary, teams with good communication increase their productivity by 20% - 25%.

Good communication is clear and concise. Employees are busy and don’t want to read giant walls of text filled with fluff. They prefer reading messages where the sender comes to the point fast. It saves time, gets work done fast, and avoids chaos.

Enter The Minto Pyramid Principle.

Barbaro Minto, a former McKinsey Consultant, invented the Minto Pyramid Principle. It’s a writing principle that suggests communicating your message in a pyramid format. That is: Begin with your conclusion/takeaway, then provide key arguments, and end with supportive data/insights that flow in a logical order.

How to follow The Minto Pyramid Principle:

a) Lead with the conclusion

Start with the main takeaways. Don’t let the reader wait until the end to know what this message is about. Share your recommendations or general conclusions at the beginning.

b) Provide key arguments

Now, you’ve to mention ‘the why’ that supports your conclusion. Why do you think this is the right approach? Provide key findings that explain why the company should follow your message. Summarize your ideas in a logical order.

c) End with supportive data/facts

You might still want to provide details to support your key points. These include statistics and facts that show your approach works. Or testimonials that back your conclusion. The main idea is to provide any detail that will address the reader's general objections.

Here’s an example of The Minto Pyramid Principle:

An employee wants to share their research results with team members. Here’s how they’ll use The Minto Pyramid Principle to get their point across faster:

Key takeaways:

a) Good communication is essential to team success. You need to communicate faster and concisely.

b) Use The Minto Pyramid Principle to attract time-sensitive people. It gets the message across faster and leads to a productive workplace.

c) The principle is a persuasive communication tool that captures the reader’s attention with the conclusion at the start, then provides key arguments, and ends with supportive data/insights.