Austin Kimm, President for Renaissance-Life, recommends: The Pyramid Principle: Logic in Writing and Thinking by Barbara Minto.
The thing that had the biggest impact on my development was actually not a management book; it was a book about how to write. Because most people like me spend a lot of time on the e-mail systems writing papers, writing business papers, writing presentations. It is an important part of what we do. There was a course I went on which was a three-day business course set up by the managing director of the business I was in which was how to write. It was called "The Pyramid Principle". It teaches people how to write a sustained e-mail, how to write a sustained message. There was a phrase there: "I wrote you a long email, because I didn't have time to write you a short one". Most people just type whatever there's in their head and by the time you get to the bottom, you've lost the point. This book made everything I wrote stand out a little bit from my peers, because when they wrote it was twice as long but I got to the point much quicker. It saved me many-many hours of heartache over the years just how to write an actual e-mail or a business paper.
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The Minto Pyramid Principle textbook explains in detail the entire thinking process that should precede writing. It has become a standard text used by all of the major consulting firms, many large corporations, and some government offices. The Minto Pyramid Principle says that your thinking will be easy for a reader to grasp if you present the ideas organized as a pyramid under a single point. But that point must be directed toward answering a question existing in your reader's mind, and your ideas must in turn obey a limited number of logical rules. The trick is to make sure your thinking fits that form before you begin to write.
The Minto Pyramid Principle textbook explains in detail the entire thinking process that should precede writing. It has become a standard text used by all of the major consulting firms, many large corporations, and some government offices. The Minto Pyramid Principle says that your thinking will be easy for a reader to grasp if you present the ideas organized as a pyramid under a single point. But that point must be directed toward answering a question existing in your reader's mind, and your ideas must in turn obey a limited number of logical rules. The trick is to make sure your thinking fits that form before you begin to write.
