You will be able to lay out a longer email or document with the main point at the top and each reason backing it up.
Putting the point in the first two sentences, as Lesson 1.1 showed, works for a short message. A report, proposal, page of findings or long email also needs an order for everything after the point. Barbara Minto's Pyramid Principle gives you that order.
Priya works as an analyst at a bank in Raffles Place (an invented example). Her manager wants to know whether the team's monthly reconciliation should move off spreadsheets and onto a new reporting tool. After a week of research she sends a two-page email. It starts by explaining how the current process works. Next come her meetings with IT, then a list of eleven findings. Near the bottom is her recommendation: on balance the team should switch, but only once the March close is finished.
Her manager opens it on the MRT and reads only the first paragraph. They conclude that Priya has been busy and write back, "Thanks, let's discuss." The discussion lasts forty minutes, and most of it goes on piecing together the argument the email already made.
The email is laid out in order of discovery: each item appears in the order Priya came across it, from the first fact through to the last. Most long work emails are written this way. It seems natural because it follows the order the work happened in. The problem is that the reader then has to sort the facts into groups, and most readers won't do that.
Minto developed the Pyramid Principle while she was at McKinsey. She later published it in a book with the same title, The Pyramid Principle. One governing idea sits at the top. A few reasons sit under it and support it, and under each reason is the detail that supports that reason. If you sketch it, it looks like an organisation chart: one box at the top, a few boxes below, and more boxes under each of those.
The governing idea, also called the top box, is the one main point of the whole piece, written as a full sentence. Priya's should have been "Switch to the new reporting tool once the March close is done," and her email should have started with that sentence.
Because the detail sits lower down, each reader can stop at the level that tells them enough. A manager might read just the top box. A colleague checking the numbers might follow one branch all the way down and skip the others.
When you state a point, the reader has a question about it, usually "why?" or "how?" If you write "we should switch after March," the reader wants to know why. If you write "we can finish the close two days sooner," they want to know how. The boxes one level down answer that question and do nothing else.
This lets you test each reason. An item that doesn't answer the question isn't a reason, so it goes in an appendix or gets cut. The reasons on one level also have to answer the same question. A reason that answers a different question from the others is in the wrong place.
Priya's eleven findings included the dates she met IT, a note that the tool has a dark mode, and the fact that the vendor has an office in Singapore. None of these tells her manager why the team should switch. When she asks herself "why?", the eleven come down to three reasons:
the tool does the manual matching step, which takes the team about two days a month it ends the copying of figures between files, which caused two of last quarter's errors (also made up) waiting until March is over means nobody has to learn a new process during a quarter-end close
Sorting the facts into groups is your job as the writer, so put each loose fact under the reason it supports. Priya puts her time estimate and the IT confirmation under the matching step, the error log under the copying between files, and the close calendar under the timing. She drops the dark mode note. Aim for about three groups, though two is fine. If you end up with seven, some of them probably belong together or some aren't reasons at all. Under each reason the detail can be as long as it needs to be, because anyone who reads that far has chosen to go deeper.
Some readers need a little context before the answer makes sense. Minto's opening for them has three short moves. The situation is something the reader already knows and agrees with. The complication is what changed or went wrong. The question is the one the complication raises, and your governing idea answers it. In a real email you can often leave the question out, because the reader is already asking it.
Keep the whole opening to two or three sentences. If the situation takes a full paragraph, you are retelling history the reader already knows.
Priya's new opening goes in that order. The situation: the reconciliation runs on spreadsheets. The complication: last quarter it took four days and two errors reached finance. The question: should the team move to the new tool, and when? The answer: switch after the March close. After that she gives each reason its own paragraph, starting with the reason in one sentence and following it with the detail. Her manager can approve after four lines or read on to check the error log, and either way the forty-minute meeting doesn't happen.
You don't need software for this. A pen and the back of a printout will do.
Start with the top box, written as a full sentence. If you can't write it, you aren't ready to write the email. Then work out what question that sentence raises, usually why or how. Underneath it, list only the reasons that answer that question, and check that they all answer the same one. Move anything else to an appendix or cut it. Put each loose fact under the reason it supports, aiming for about three groups. Two is fine, and seven means you should merge or cut. If your reader needs context, write an opening of two or three sentences that gives the situation, the complication and the question, with your governing idea as the answer. Then give each reason its own paragraph, with the reason in one sentence first and its detail after it.
For the activity below, pick a report or long email of your own, ideally one that got "let's discuss" when you were hoping for a decision. Then sketch its pyramid using the steps above.
Pick a recent report or long email and sketch it as a pyramid on paper. Write one governing point, up to three reasons, and the detail that goes under each reason.
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