written-communication
refoundai/lenny-skills
Master professional writing to align stakeholders and scale leadership influence through structured narratives.
What is written-communication?
This skill helps leaders write with clarity and persuasion using frameworks like SCR (Situation-Complication-Resolution) and the Minto Pyramid Principle. Use it to craft executive communications, async documentation, and structured feedback loops that drive organizational alignment and reduce misunderstanding.
- Apply SCR and Minto Pyramid frameworks to structure business narratives with context before recommendations
- Sharpen drafts by identifying primary conclusions and removing fluff while adapting tone for your audience
- Establish shared, non-controversial situations as the foundation for executive-level clarity
- Design async communication norms and structured feedback loops for distributed teams
- Use writing as a learning tool to deepen your own understanding while creating high-quality outputs
- Review emails, decks, and messages for structure, clarity, detail level, and tone
How to install written-communication
npx skills add https://github.com/refoundai/lenny-skills --skill written-communicationHow to use written-communication
- 1.Identify your primary audience and the one action you need them to take after reading
- 2.Map your draft to the SCR framework: establish the Situation (facts everyone agrees on), explain the Complication (what changed), and propose the Resolution (what to do)
- 3.Review your opening sentence—if it doesn't contain your main recommendation, restructure to lead with your conclusion
- 4.Check for missing supporting data or facts that would strengthen your argument
- 5.Adapt tone and detail level for your specific audience, removing jargon or over-explanation as needed
- 6.Consider whether this communication could move from a meeting to an async document, and structure accordingly
Use cases
- Restructure a product strategy memo using SCR to ensure stakeholders understand the problem before the solution
- Draft an executive update that can replace a synchronous meeting with clear async documentation
- Refine a help request or ask using the 6-Part Ask Template to increase the likelihood of getting support
- Improve a quarterly business review or status update for clarity and executive readability
- Establish team norms for written communication to reduce meeting overhead and improve decision velocity
- Product managers and leaders scaling influence across organizations
- Executives and managers writing strategy, updates, and decision documents
- Teams adopting async-first communication practices
- Anyone seeking to improve clarity and persuasiveness in professional writing
written-communication FAQ
SCR (Situation-Complication-Resolution) is a narrative wrapper that provides context before the recommendation. The Minto Pyramid structures the Resolution section specifically by building persuasive arguments from conclusions down to supporting data. They work together: SCR frames the overall story, Minto Pyramid strengthens the recommendation logic.
Lead with your primary recommendation or request in the first sentence or opening paragraph. Use the TLDR + Context structure: put the most important point at the top, then provide optional supporting details below. Be explicit about what action or decision you need from the reader.
Yes, but with caution. Use AI as an editorial partner after you've done strict planning and drafted your core ideas. AI generation without a planning phase produces generic content that lacks your unique perspective and authority. Tools like The Executive Editor GPT can grade your drafts on structure, clarity, and tone.
Start with unambiguous facts and data that everyone can agree on, regardless of their position on the issue. Avoid controversial interpretations in the Situation section. Once everyone agrees on the facts, the Complication and Resolution become easier to discuss because the foundation is solid.
Use writing as a forcing function to hold yourself accountable and be thorough. Research deeply, experiment, and synthesize novel insights. Then distill everything into concise, actionable takeaways you can reference later. This process deepens your mastery while creating valuable outputs for others.
Full instructions (SKILL.md)
Source of truth, from refoundai/lenny-skills.
name: written-communication description: Help users master professional writing to bridge gaps between stakeholders, scale their leadership influence, and ensure organizational clarity through structured narratives and async-first norms.
Written Communication for Leaders
Scale your influence and drive alignment through structured, clear, and persuasive writing.
Help the user with written communication for leaders using insights from 12 guests and posts across Lenny's Podcast and Newsletter.
How to Help
- Framework application - Guide the user in applying the SCR or Minto Pyramid frameworks to their current draft.
- Narrative sharpening - Help the user identify and lead with their primary conclusion to ensure executive clarity.
- Tone and conciseness - Review drafts to remove fluff, strengthen logic, and adapt the tone for the intended audience.
- Process design - Assist in establishing async communication norms or structured feedback loops for the team.
Core Principles
Write for Personal Mastery
Julian Shapiro: "They're forcing functions for me to hold myself accountable and to be thorough when learning something for my own benefit. That's all they are. Basically if I want to go learn growth or writing well or some other topic, I will go ahead and do a ton of research, read everything I can get my hands on, do a ton of experimentation to try to build a set of novel insights that you couldn't find from other people's research hopefully, and then the next stage is try to make it as concise and actionable as possible so that I can reference it for my own selfish benefit."
Use writing as a selfish tool for your own learning to ensure the resulting work is thorough and high quality.
Scale Influence via Documentation
Kevin Yien: "writing is clarity at scale, and a key component to a PM's job is creating clarity both i"
Effective writing is a primary tool for maintaining clarity and alignment across an entire organization simultaneously.
Standardize Narrative Frameworks
From "The Minto Pyramid Principle and the SCR Framework": "If you simplify this further, there are three parts to every narrative: Situation, Complication, Resolution. 1. Situation: What is the state of affairs today. Facts, data, and unambiguous background. 2. Complication: What has changed that requires action. What is the problem? 3. Resolution: What we need to do to resolve this complication."
Structure business communications around a Situation, Complication, and Resolution to provide necessary context before proposing solutions.
Establish Shared Situations
From "Essential reading for product builders—part 2": "The best executive communication starts with the state of affairs. It’s fact-based, unambiguous. It’s totally not controversial. No matter what side of an issue or a hard choice you’re on, you should be able to read the situation and go, ‘That pretty much sums it up.’"
Achieve executive level clarity by starting with a non-controversial set of facts that everyone can agree on before introducing complications.
Templates & Frameworks
- SCR (Situation-Complication-Resolution) Framework (The Minto Pyramid Principle and the SCR Framework) - A narrative structure for business communication derived from the universal story arc. Provides context before the recommendation to avoid being too abrupt. Als
- The Minto Pyramid Principle (The Minto Pyramid Principle and the SCR Framework) - A communication framework developed by Barbara Minto at McKinsey for structuring persuasive business arguments. Instead of building up from data to conclusions
- 6-Part Ask Template (On asking for help (even when you really don’t want to)) - A structured template for making effective help requests in professional contexts. Can be adapted based on relationship strength, goal overlap, and recipient ex
- Writing Quality Improvement Checklist (500,000) - Actionable steps for improving newsletter writing quality based on Lenny's experience and three recommended books
- The Executive Editor GPT (How to become a supermanager with AI) - A custom GPT that grades written communications (emails, decks, Slack messages) on structure, clarity, level of detail, and tone, and provides actionable improv
- TLDR + Context Message Structure (Wes Kao) - A format for written business communication that puts the most important point at the top followed by optional context below
- Using AI as a Writing/Editing Partner (Seth Godin) - Seth's specific process for using Claude as an editorial assistant while maintaining authorial voice.
- Combined SCR + Minto Pyramid Framework (The Minto Pyramid Principle and the SCR Framework) - The integration of both frameworks: SCR provides the narrative wrapper, and the Minto Pyramid structures the Resolution section specifically.
See references/artifacts.md for the full list with details.
Questions to Help Users
- "Who is the primary audience for this document, and what is the one thing you need them to do after reading?"
- "What is the shared, non-controversial Situation that everyone involved can agree on?"
- "If you had to put your main recommendation in the first sentence, what would it say?"
- "What are the specific areas where you need critical feedback versus just general awareness?"
- "Which supporting data or facts might be missing that would strengthen your Resolution?"
- "How can we transition this update from a synchronous meeting to an asynchronous document?"
Common Mistakes to Flag
- Leading with the discovery process - Busy stakeholders care about the conclusion first and the discovery process second.
- Burying the ask - Unclear requests create friction and delay the help or decisions you need to move forward.
- Ignoring the Situation - Proposing solutions without shared context leads to misalignment and unnecessary debate over the problem itself.
- Over-reliance on AI generation - Using AI without a strict planning phase results in generic content that lacks your unique perspective and authority.
Deep Dive
For all 13 sourced insights from 12 guests, see references/guest-insights.md
Related Skills
- Product Reviews
- Executive Communication
- Managing Up
- Running Meetings
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