Lenny's Written Position
Great PMs take pride in the clarity and conciseness of their documents, emails, presentations, and meetings because people judge the quality of thinking by the quality of communication.
In business communication you should start with the answer first and then provide supporting arguments, the opposite of how you naturally arrive at conclusions.
The SCR (Situation-Complication-Resolution) framework combined with the Minto Pyramid is an effective structure for any business proposal, email, strategy doc, or presentation.
In a business context you should spend minimal time on Situation and Complication to get to the Resolution as quickly as possible, since colleagues want to be informed not entertained.
The most effective tactic for managing up is sending a weekly 'State of The Me' email to your boss covering current priorities, things on your mind, and blockers.
When asked to take on more work, the best response is to prioritize the new ask among existing work and communicate that prioritization back to your manager rather than saying yes or no.
When communicating a project failure to leadership, be up front about it, stay positive, separate the idea from the execution, and most importantly have a clear plan for next steps.
Remote work leads to increased miscommunication, and the key to good relationships with remote engineers and designers is maintaining clarity through writing things down, screensharing, and postmorteming everything shipped.
Problem statements are like silver burritos: everyone on the team has a unique version of the problem in their heads, and the PM's job is to eradicate this misalignment early and often.
Podcast Moments
“You actually have to prepare to be spontaneous. And that's counterintuitive, but when you think about it in athletics or jazz music, it's like of course you would prepare and practice.”
How to speak more confidently and persuasively | Matt Abrahams (professor, podcast host, author, speaker) · Matt Abrahams
“Strive for connection over perfection by daring to be dull. Just answer the question. Just give the feedback. Just be engaged in the small talk. By doing that, you dial down the volume of self-evaluation, freeing up resources that can be used to really help you succeed.”
How to speak more confidently and persuasively | Matt Abrahams (professor, podcast host, author, speaker) · Matt Abrahams
“I think often when there's difficult conversations, or those conflicts come up, you can put them off until they become much bigger. Or if somebody is conflict adverse, they can try to avoid having it at all. But by having a specific slot of time in your week for something like that, then you're sort of in that mindset.”
Lessons from Atlassian: Launching new products, getting buy-in, and staying ahead of the competition | Megan Cook (head of product, Jira) · Megan Cook
“Everyone loves the word storytelling in business. It's a huge buzzword. They love to think of themselves as storytellers, but when they come to me, they don't really want to be storytellers. Because to be a storyteller means you have to separate yourself from the herd, and in their mind, that risks them getting picked off.”
How to tell better stories | Matthew Dicks (Storyworthy) · Matthew Dicks
“The risk you take if you're not telling stories is that you will be forgotten. 100%. You will be forgotten.”
How to tell better stories | Matthew Dicks (Storyworthy) · Matthew Dicks
“Do not write down my question because if you sound like Kim Scott and not like yourself, then other people are not going to believe you want the answer. It needs to sound authentic to you.”
Radical Candor: From theory to practice with author Kim Scott · Kim Scott
“Communication is constantly underrated. And communication isn't about being able to convey a message, it's about being able to convey a message in a way that the listener receives it, and understands it, and remembers it. And that's really hard to do.”
Scaling Duolingo, embracing failure, and insight into Latin America’s tech scene | Gina Gotthilf (Latitud, Duolingo) · Gina Gotthilf
“A lot of people think that the only time you really need to present well is when you have a big stage talk and you make the big investment in the script. I'll tell you a dirty little secret. I can get my husband to do chores for me on the weekends with a real quick, what is, what could be new bliss.”
Storytelling with Nancy Duarte: How to craft compelling presentations and tell a story that sticks · Nancy Duarte
“Pushback is, I couldn't imagine a word more viscerally that makes you feel like you're sort of physically going against what somebody else wants, and it gears people into a mindset of then, well, how should I push back. It starts from a place of I need to disagree, I need to say no.”
Building a meaningful career | Jason Shah (Airbnb, Amazon, Microsoft, Alchemy) · Jason Shah
“I think you both have a very natural instinct for writing and synthesizing things that people are feeling with a clarity that's really helpful.”
The rituals of great teams | Shishir Mehrotra of Coda, YouTube, Microsoft · Shishir Mehrotra
“The best CEOs I've worked with, whether it's Brian Chesky, Brian Armstrong, or Kevin Systrom, they all share one thing: they have an incredibly clear vision of where they want to go, and they can communicate it in a way that makes everyone want to follow them there.”
Sanchan Saxena (VP of Product at Coinbase) on the inside story of how Airbnb made it through Covid; what he’s learned from Brian Chesky, Brian Armstrong, and Kevin Systrom; much more · Sanchan Saxena
Cutting Room Floor
Guest insights on this topic that Lenny hasn't (yet) written about in his newsletters. Potential material for future posts.
“You actually have to prepare to be spontaneous. And that's counterintuitive, but when you think about it in athletics or jazz music, it's like of course you would prepare and practice.”
How to speak more confidently and persuasively | Matt Abrahams (professor, podcast host, author, speaker) · Matt Abrahams
“Strive for connection over perfection by daring to be dull. Just answer the question. Just give the feedback. Just be engaged in the small talk. By doing that, you dial down the volume of self-evaluation, freeing up resources that can be used to really help you succeed.”
How to speak more confidently and persuasively | Matt Abrahams (professor, podcast host, author, speaker) · Matt Abrahams
“I think often when there's difficult conversations, or those conflicts come up, you can put them off until they become much bigger. Or if somebody is conflict adverse, they can try to avoid having it at all. But by having a specific slot of time in your week for something like that, then you're sort of in that mindset.”
Lessons from Atlassian: Launching new products, getting buy-in, and staying ahead of the competition | Megan Cook (head of product, Jira) · Megan Cook
“The risk you take if you're not telling stories is that you will be forgotten. 100%. You will be forgotten.”
How to tell better stories | Matthew Dicks (Storyworthy) · Matthew Dicks
“Do not write down my question because if you sound like Kim Scott and not like yourself, then other people are not going to believe you want the answer. It needs to sound authentic to you.”
Radical Candor: From theory to practice with author Kim Scott · Kim Scott
“I think you both have a very natural instinct for writing and synthesizing things that people are feeling with a clarity that's really helpful.”
The rituals of great teams | Shishir Mehrotra of Coda, YouTube, Microsoft · Shishir Mehrotra
“The best CEOs I've worked with, whether it's Brian Chesky, Brian Armstrong, or Kevin Systrom, they all share one thing: they have an incredibly clear vision of where they want to go, and they can communicate it in a way that makes everyone want to follow them there.”
Sanchan Saxena (VP of Product at Coinbase) on the inside story of how Airbnb made it through Covid; what he’s learned from Brian Chesky, Brian Armstrong, and Kevin Systrom; much more · Sanchan Saxena