Communication · Leadership
Communication
&
Storytelling
How to structure presentations executives act on, write for busy stakeholders, tell stories with data, and adapt your message to different audiences.
Storytelling
Presentations
Stakeholders
Writing
The Skill Gap
The most underrated skill in product and management
Technical skills get you in the room. Communication skills determine what happens when you're there. PMs who can't explain a decision to a non-technical executive lose budget. Analysts who can't narrate their findings produce reports nobody reads. Managers who communicate poorly create teams that don't know what matters.
Weak communicator
- Presents data without a point of view
- Uses jargon that excludes non-technical stakeholders
- Slides full of text; reads from them verbatim
- Buries the recommendation at the end
- Reports what happened without saying what to do
Right analysis, wrong framing. The work gets done but the impact is lost.
Strong communicator
- Leads with the recommendation, backs it with evidence
- Translates technical findings into business language
- Slides are visual supports; the speaker is the content
- Every message is calibrated to the audience's context
- Turns data into a decision, not a discovery
Same analysis. Decision gets made. Budget gets approved. Team gets aligned.
Structure
The SCR Framework: Situation, Complication, Resolution
Developed at McKinsey, SCR is the foundation of executive communication. It structures any message (email, presentation, or verbal update) into a narrative arc that moves from context to problem to solution. Busy executives process this structure instantly.
S
Situation: shared context. Start with what everyone already knows and agrees is true. This establishes common ground and primes the audience to notice when something changes. "Our Q2 conversion rate was 4.2%, in line with the 4–5% we've maintained for the past three quarters." Keep it brief: the Situation is not new information, it's alignment.
C
Complication: what changed. The tension that makes action necessary. Something has changed, a problem has emerged, or an opportunity has appeared that disrupts the stable situation. "In July, our conversion rate dropped to 2.8%, a 33% decline. Analysis shows this correlates with the checkout redesign shipped on July 3rd." The Complication creates urgency without alarm.
R
Resolution: what you're recommending. The specific action you're proposing. Not "we should investigate further"; that's not a resolution. "We recommend reverting the checkout redesign by Friday and running a controlled A/B test before the next iteration. This will recover approximately €180K in lost monthly revenue." The Resolution ends with a clear decision point for the audience.
The Pyramid Principle (Barbara Minto): Lead with the conclusion, then support it with arguments, then support each argument with evidence. Executives are time-poor. If you build up slowly to your recommendation, you'll lose them before you get there. Start at the top of the pyramid.
Data Storytelling
Turning data into decisions
Data without narrative is noise. A chart that requires a minute to interpret is a chart that will be ignored. The goal of data storytelling is not to show everything you know. It's to show the one thing that matters and make it impossible to misunderstand.
Choose the right chart
Chart type should match the comparison you're making. Line charts show change over time. Bar charts compare discrete categories. Scatter plots show correlations. Pie charts show part-to-whole (use sparingly; bar charts are almost always clearer). Using the wrong chart type doesn't just confuse; it actively misleads. A bar chart starting at a non-zero Y-axis exaggerates differences by orders of magnitude.
Remove chart junk
Every element that isn't information is distraction. Edward Tufte's data-to-ink ratio: maximise the proportion of ink devoted to data vs. decoration. Remove gridlines that don't aid reading. Remove 3D effects, shadows, and gradients. Remove redundant legends when labels can sit directly on the data. A clean chart communicates faster and is more memorable than a decorated one.
Write a headline, not a title
The chart title should state the insight, not describe the chart. "Monthly Active Users by Segment" is a title. "Enterprise MAU grew 34% while SMB declined 12%, a segment mix shift that masks flat overall growth" is a headline. Headline titles pre-process the chart for the reader; they arrive at the insight before they've even looked at the data. This is not dumbing down; it's respecting their time.
Contextualise the number
A number without context is meaningless. "Our NPS is 34." Is that good? Bad? Improving? Compare to: last quarter (34 vs. 28, up 21%), industry benchmark (34 vs. 32 average), and your own goal (34 vs. target of 40). Numbers land differently when they have a reference point. Always provide at least two: a historical comparison and an external benchmark.
Stakeholders
Communicating to different audiences
The same information needs to be packaged differently for a CEO, an engineer, a customer, and a board member. The facts don't change; the framing, depth, and format do. Failing to adapt is the root cause of most "nobody reads my reports" complaints.
Executives
Lead with the recommendation. Use business language (revenue, margin, risk, time). Maximum one page or 5 minutes. They don't want to know how you got there; they want to know what to decide and what happens if they don't. If they want depth, they'll ask.
Engineering Teams
Be specific and honest about tradeoffs. Engineers hate vague requirements and oversimplified business logic. Explain the "why": what user problem this solves, what metric it moves. Include constraints upfront. Respect their expertise: they'll find solutions you haven't thought of if you frame the problem clearly.
External Stakeholders
Clients, partners, and investors want progress relative to expectations, not internal metrics they don't have context for. Frame updates around their goals, not yours. "We shipped X, which means you can now do Y" beats "we completed the API integration." Translate every internal milestone into external value.
Writing
Writing that gets read
Most business writing fails because it's written for the writer's clarity, not the reader's time. Good business writing is brutally edited: every unnecessary word removed, every passive verb made active, every buried point surfaced.
Watch out for these
Start with the ask, not the context: The first line of any business email should state what you need. "I'm writing to request approval for X by Friday" beats three paragraphs of background before a buried ask. If the reader only reads the first sentence, they should know what you want.
Use the subject line as a headline: "Q3 Update" is a folder, not a subject line. "Q3: Revenue on track, churn rising, decision needed on retention budget" tells the recipient exactly what's inside and whether to open it now. A descriptive subject line also makes emails findable months later.
One email, one topic: Emails covering three topics produce responses to one. Important decisions get lost in threads about irrelevant updates. If you have three things to discuss, send three short emails, or schedule a call. Mixing topics is how decisions get delayed.
Write short sentences: Average sentence length in clear business writing: 14–18 words. A sentence over 30 words almost always contains two ideas that should be separated. Cut adverbs. Replace passive voice with active. Delete "as per our conversation," "please be advised," and "I wanted to reach out." They add length but not meaning.
Takeaway
Communication is a product skill
Structure before you write
The SCR framework, the Pyramid Principle, the BLUF method (Bottom Line Up Front) all share the same core insight: the structure of your communication determines whether the message lands. Spend more time on structure than on phrasing. Good structure survives bad phrasing; good phrasing cannot save bad structure.
Know your audience before you start
What does this person already know? What do they care about? What decision are they being asked to make? Answering these three questions before writing anything produces communication that's relevant, appropriately detailed, and actionable. Writing without this context is why so many reports are never read.
Edit ruthlessly
The first draft is always too long. Good business writing is mostly editing: cutting until only what matters remains. The reader's attention is a finite resource. Every unnecessary word spent is an unnecessary tax on their time. Respecting that is both good communication and professional courtesy.
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