Concept
Lead with the point
Leading with the point is the inverted pyramid applied to work: the answer or the ask first, the reasons second, the detail last, so that a reader who stops after one line still has what matters.
Journalists learned the inverted pyramid when stories could be cut at any line by the telegraph; the Heaths apply it to messages that may be cut at any line by the reader's attention. It feels rude to people trained to build toward a conclusion and risky when the point is bad news, and it is neither. A reader who has the answer trusts the reasons more because they know where they are going, and bad news in the first line reads as honesty where the same news in paragraph nine reads as concealment. The order is fixed: answer, reasons, detail. Concreteness rides along: the first line should hold a date, a number or a name the reader can act on.
A real-life example
'Following discussions with the platform team regarding the payments integration, we have identified some considerations' becomes 'The release stays on the 14th. One risk: the payments API spec has not arrived. I need Emre's confirmation by Tuesday.' The director replies in four minutes.
How to use it
- 1Write the message, then move the last sentence to the top.
- 2If the news is bad, it goes in the first line.
- 3Put a date, a number or a name in the first two lines.