Since the establishment of 1926, McKinsey has been committed to solving major management problems of enterprises and helping the world's leading enterprises to continuously improve their business performance.
Although it has faded in recent years, McKinsey is still regarded as an elite corporate doctor in the hearts of most customers. The report it submitted is rigorous in logic, detailed in data and powerful in conclusion. Even the typesetting, color matching and fonts are beautifully designed and pleasing to the eye.
However, this state of high-quality output did not exist at the beginning.
In the 1960s, even a senior partner of McKinsey would grab his eyebrows and beard when writing a report, so that readers could not grasp the main points.
This surprised barbara minto, a newcomer to the workplace.
Minto's growing experience is quite unforgettable. As a child, she grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, and was gifted. 196 1 year, Harvard business school broke the tradition and enrolled the first batch of female students. Minto is one of them. Two years later, McKinsey opened a new office in Cleveland and hired her as the first female consultant in the company's history.
Soon, Minto's writing talent began to appear. First, her superiors, and then more and more partners in offices all over the country sent reports to Minto, asking her to help improve.
From 65438 to 0966, Minto was sent to London by the company to improve the writing ability of more and more European employees. There, with the help of colleagues, Minto gradually refined the golden pyramid principle of writing.
1973 After serving in McKinsey for ten years, Minto chose to leave and set up his own consulting company to teach people the principles of the Golden Pyramid.
Nowadays, in the whole consulting industry, the golden pyramid principle has become a recognized expression convention in the industry.
Perhaps the most unpleasant thing we encounter at work is writing or making a long speech.
The main reason why we are embarrassed or even crazy is that we can't think of a clue. This is the theme of this book, the problem to be solved by the golden pyramid principle.
The golden pyramid principle is a kind of logical thinking, expression and standardized action with prominent focus, clear logic and clear priorities.
Basic structure: the central idea is clear, the conclusion comes first, the above are unified, classified and grouped, and the logic is progressive. First important, then secondary, first whole, then details, first conclusion, then cause, first result, then process.
Train the expresser: pay attention to and tap the audience's intentions, needs, interests, concerns, interests and excitement, figure out what to say and how to say it, master the standard structure of expression, and standardize actions.
Communication effect: the focus is prominent, the thinking is clear, the focus is clear, and the audience is interested, understandable, acceptable and memorable.
Specific practices: top-down expression, bottom-up thinking, vertical question answer/summary, horizontal classification and grouping/deduction, foreword telling stories, and title refining the essence of ideas.
Let's take an example to feel the comparison before and after applying the golden pyramid principle.
Tripartite coordination meeting time:
Zhang San called and said he couldn't attend the meeting at 3 pm.
Li Si said that he doesn't mind having a meeting later. Tomorrow is fine, but not before 10: 30.
Wang Wu's secretary said that he was away on business and would not be back until later tomorrow.
The conference room has been reserved for tomorrow, but no one will reserve it the day after tomorrow.
It seems that it is more appropriate to arrange the tripartite talks at 1 1 the morning after tomorrow. Are you all right?
The usual coordination record is as follows:
The coordinate record after applying the golden pyramid principle is as follows:
Which method is clearer and clearer?
Usually, if the reader thinks the article is incoherent, the most likely reason is that the order of expressing ideas conflicts with the reader's understanding.
For the audience, the easiest order to understand is: first understand the main and abstract ideas, and then understand the secondary ideas that support the main ideas.
The main viewpoints expressed at first make the audience have some questions about the viewpoints of the expresser, and the viewpoints at the next level will answer these questions. Through continuous question and answer dialogue, the audience can understand all the ideas in the article.
Interestingly, it is a natural reaction of human beings to make a question-and-answer response to the views expounded in the article, and there is no difference between nationality and nationality. In addition, human beings also have the same characteristics, that is, only by expressing our thoughts in a certain way (speaking or writing) can we accurately grasp our own thoughts (expressing them can be grasped).
This phenomenon embodies the basic law of human thinking:
The brain automatically groups information according to the pyramid structure, which is easy to understand and remember.
The communication content summarized into pyramid structure in advance is easier to understand and remember.
Let's look at a concrete example:
Seeing the picture above, will you unconsciously divide the six black spots into two groups, three in each group? The main reason for this phenomenon is that the distance between some black spots is larger than others.
This kind of brain activity that organizes things automatically and spontaneously is carried out imperceptibly every day. Just like the ancestors of ancient Greece, when looking up at the starry sky, they saw not scattered stars, but various patterns made up of stars.
Basically, the brain thinks that everything that happens at the same time has some connection, and it organizes these things according to some logical pattern.
Organizational principles are usually called * * *. These * * * features may be temporal, such as cause and effect or steps; May be structural, such as space or distribution; It may also be a degree, such as priority or importance.
The need for grouping is closely related to the limited memory ability of the brain.
Let's look at another example:
If you don't read the above words again, can you still remember nine things that a wife wants her husband to buy? Maybe most men only buy newspapers and grapes when they go home.
In view of this phenomenon, george miller once put forward the wonderful number 7 in his paper. Miller believes that the brain's short-term memory cannot accommodate more than seven memory items at a time. There are individual differences. Some people can remember 9 items at a time, while others can only remember 5 items. It is easier for the brain to remember three items, and of course 1 is the easiest to remember.
This means that when the brain finds that there are more than four or five items to be processed, it will start to divide them into different logical categories for easy memory.
It should be noted that memory capacity has nothing to do with IQ. No matter how high the reader's IQ is, the available thinking ability is very limited.
When readers start reading, part of their thinking ability is used to identify and interpret words, the other part is used to find out the relationship between various ideas, and the rest is used to understand the meaning of the expressed ideas.
Therefore, the speaker should consciously organize the communication content into a pyramid structure, including oral and written expressions, so as to reduce the time spent by the audience on the first two activities and let the readers save their brains and concentrate on understanding the ideas to be expressed.
Write a preface
In the golden pyramid principle and top-down structure, preface is the most important.
Usually, the preface appears in the form of telling a story, and the content of the story should be related to the information known to the reader.
The reason why stories are used is to let readers put aside their complicated thoughts and concentrate on your topic. Everyone may have had this experience. I read most of an article and suddenly found that I didn't read a word. This is because we have not put aside other thoughts in our minds, as the saying goes, we are in Cao Cao and our hearts are in the Han Dynasty.
In order to effectively attract readers' attention, there is a very simple way to use the suspense effect produced by unfinished stories.
This is what you should do in the preface of the article. You should arouse readers' interest in the theme by telling them a story related to the theme.
Of course, the preface should also be a "good story" for readers. If you have children, you will know that the best stories in the world are actually stories that children have already heard. So, if you really want to tell readers a "good story", you should tell them a "story" that they already know, or a "story" that they should know (if readers have background knowledge in this field).
This method enables you to convey some information that readers will definitely agree with before expressing the views that readers may disagree with. From a psychological point of view, it is easier for readers to accept the whole idea by transmitting simple and easy-to-understand information to readers first than by letting readers grope in chaotic thoughts.
The story begins with a background.
The time to introduce the "background" is when you can make an independent and uncontroversial statement on the theme of the article. The independence of expression means that before this expression, there is no need to use other expressions to discuss its exact meaning; Non-controversial means that you expect readers to understand and accept the statement.
All sentences that lead to "background" have an important feature, that is, they can "lock" you in a specific time and space, thus preparing for telling stories.
With the background, it is necessary to promote the development of the plot through conflict. In addition, it has aroused readers' doubts.
The reader's "question" may take many forms, but it is usually equivalent to asking "what's next". Let's give some examples through the following table:
Although a complete preface includes four elements: background, conflict and question and answer, questions are usually presented in an implicit way. In addition to the standardized writing style of background-conflict-answer, the basic elements can be presented in different order, forming different writing styles.
In business articles, there are four most common foreword modes:
Issue instructions: for "what should we do" or "what should we do" and other issues;
Ask for support: for the question "should we do this?"
Explanatory exercise: for "what should we do" and other issues;
Comparative substitution: for "what should we do" and other issues.
A good preface can not only attract and keep the reader's attention, but also affect the reader's understanding of the article. On the one hand, the story in the preface will make readers feel substituted for the author's unique interpretation of the background; On the other hand, storytelling can also increase readers' recognition of the logical reasoning process of the author's conclusion.
layer of structure
The answers in the preface often need further reasoning, which leads to the downward development of the pyramid structure.
Views or ideas at each level must have a certain logical order. To sum up, there are three types of brain grouping activities:
Determine the time (step) sequence of causality;
The spatial (structural) order of dividing the whole into parts or combining parts into a whole;
The degree (priority) order of grouping similar things according to their importance.
In chronological order, we should first determine the desired result or effect, and then point out the actions that must be taken to achieve this effect. When all kinds of actions must be taken to achieve results, they must be arranged in chronological order, and the summary of this group of actions must be the results or goals to be achieved by taking these actions.
In terms of time sequence expression, it is best not to have more than 4 or 5 ideas in each group, and at the same time, the hidden logical ideas should be revealed.
Spatial order is usually used to draw organization chart or industry chart. At this time, it is necessary to divide the whole into parts, or partially form a whole.
In the expression of spatial order, grouping needs to follow the so-called MECE principle: all parts of the whole need to be independent, non-overlapping and exclusive; At the same time, all parts are completely used up and there is no omission.
Degree order, also known as importance order, is the order in which you use a group of companies that are clustered together because of certain characteristics. For example, among all the questions, pick out the three most important questions to form a group, and put the rest in another group.
In each group, according to the degree of each problem with this feature, the order is: first strong, then weak, first important, then secondary.
Straighten out logic
With hierarchy, we can see that all the ideas in the pyramid structure are interrelated in three ways: upward, downward and horizontal. The same group thought is the explanation and support of his higher level thought; On the contrary, the thought of the upper level is the synthesis and overview of his next group of thoughts.
In addition, the logical reasoning relationship between the same group of ideas should be straightened out.
Deductive reasoning: it is a linear reasoning method, and the ultimate goal is to draw a conclusion from the logical word "therefore".
Inductive reasoning: it is to classify and group a group of facts, ideas or viewpoints with * * * commonality, and sum up their * * * sameness (or arguments).
These two logical reasoning methods are the only two modes to establish the logical relationship between thoughts. In the process of deduction, every thought is derived from the previous one; However, this relationship does not exist in the process of induction.
Deductive reasoning needs to complete three steps:
Survey results: problems or existing phenomena;
Analysis conclusion: the root and cause of the problem;
Make suggestions: solutions to problems.
Because deductive reasoning is easier to realize than inductive reasoning, people will use deductive reasoning more when thinking. However, the expression of his syllogism is clumsy and cumbersome when used in writing. Therefore, deduction is usually only used in a certain paragraph
Compared with deductive reasoning, inductive reasoning is much more difficult because it requires more creative thinking.
When using inductive reasoning, you must have the following two main skills:
Define this group of thoughts correctly and find nouns that can represent the similarity of this group of thoughts.
Accurately identify and eliminate the thoughts that are not commensurate with other thoughts in this group of thoughts.
In concrete application, inductive reasoning either keeps the subject in the same group of thinking unchanged, but changes the predicate; Or keep the predicate unchanged and change the subject (variable induction). In deductive reasoning, the second point is the discussion of the subject or predicate of the first point (variable substitution).
sum up the main points
After straightening out the logic, we still need to finish thinking.
One of the keys to a good article is to avoid "lack of thinking" in the abstract statement. It is necessary to ensure that the same set of ideas has been effectively refined and summarized. Only in this way can readers think deeply about the theme of the article.
Summarize the expressions of each group of ideas, which can be action sentences, that is, tell readers what to do; It can also be a descriptive statement, which tells the reader something.
If it is a summary of action ideas, after introducing the actions, steps and processes taken, it should explain the results, effects and goals achieved after taking actions.
If it is a summary of descriptive thoughts, when introducing the background or information, it should be stated that these thoughts have the same meaning or meaning.
Summing up ideas is time-consuming and laborious, because it is necessary to consciously mobilize the thinking process. Usually, people don't want to bother, but simply combine some ideas and deal with them with some "thoughtless" sentences. For example, five problems found in the investigation, six possible steps and so on.
Because of this, those concise and meaningful general words are unforgettable for a long time.
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After mastering the principle of golden pyramid skillfully, the final result is that we can write concise and clear articles in the shortest time.
Outside of writing
The key to writing a good article lies in thinking. This is why Minto originally drafted the following title for the Golden Pagoda Principle:
Skillful writing through structured thinking.
Definition problem
Judging whether a problem exists usually depends on whether there is a gap between the results (status quo) obtained through hard work and the desired results (goals). Specifically includes the following aspects:
A specific result in a specific background is called an unexpected result (R 1, that is, the status quo).
The problem is that you don't like one result (such as sales decrease) and want other results (such as sales increase). This result is called desired result (R2).
The solution refers to how to reach the target R2 from the current situation R 1.
With this framework, we can clearly judge:
Are there any/possible problems (or opportunities)?
If so, what is the problem?
Structured analysis
The standard process of analyzing problems: collecting information? Describe the discovery-draw a conclusion-propose a plan.
However, a large consulting firm once estimated that as much as 60% of the data collection and analysis work was useless. Consultants spend a lot of time, but they write long and boring articles, which can't show the real value of their work well.
Finally, it is found that the effective method is to analyze the problem before collecting data, which has been adopted by many excellent consulting companies. To some extent, this method is to repeat the traditional scientific method:
Put forward various assumptions.
Design one or several important experiments and eliminate one or several hypotheses according to the results.
Draw a clear conclusion through experiments.
Take corresponding remedial measures.
In other words, it is to force yourself to think about the possible causes of the problem (retrospective reasoning). After that, the focus is on collecting information to prove whether it is these reasons.
There are only three methods of structural analysis: presenting tangible structure, finding causality and grouping. These * * * isomorphism constitute the diagnosis framework of the problem, and the following figure gives a simple example.
Find a solution
Usually, after defining a problem and analyzing its structure, only those who have a deep understanding of its field can come up with creative solutions.
Profound knowledge helps to gain insight and find alternatives that can only be found outside the scope of logical reasoning. However, for people who lack keen insight, logical trees can be used to find possible solutions to problems.
The following is a simple logical tree case:
When we use the methods of defining problems, structural analysis (diagnostic framework) and finding solutions (logical tree) to further develop our thinking, there are two benefits:
Improve thinking and find the blind spots and defects of thinking;
The process of writing and thinking naturally conforms to the golden pyramid principle.
For efficient thinking and expression, the golden pyramid principle does provide us with an excellent framework.
Whether the way we adopt is top-down construction or bottom-up integration, in the end, our thinking will be clearer and our expression will be smoother. This is beneficial to both the author's output and the audience's acceptance.
Writing here, I want to do some critical thinking, both for readers and for myself.
Gold and pyramid principles are widely used in consulting industry, because it fully conforms to human cognitive preferences. And we know that human cognition is very easy to be distorted, thus forming the so-called cognitive fallacy.
In the discovery of thinking, these two cognitive fallacies are introduced:
Anchoring effect: the judgment will be influenced by random reference points. For example, before judging the figures of African countries, turning a roulette wheel, people who stop at a larger number will guess more numbers than those who stop at a smaller number.
Frame effect: different perspectives describing the same problem will make the final decision completely different. For example, the probability that the response plan expressed by the number of deaths is supported is obviously lower than that expressed by the number of survivors, although the two are actually the same thing.
This has to arouse our vigilance.
If the first conclusion happens to be preconceived by cognitive fallacies, which may seriously interfere with the audience's judgment, then we must rely on extra vigilance to get rid of the powerful magic of the golden pyramid principle.
For example, if you have a hammer in your hand, you will find more problems that look like nails.
Everything has two sides. When we appreciate fragrant flowers, we need to pay more attention to their blooming process.