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Become a Better Communicator- Specific Frameworks to Improve Your Clarity, Influence, and Impact | Wes Kao

Career | Growth

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  • Take Ownership of Communication
    • Reflect on how you might be contributing to communication issues instead of blaming others.
    • Focus on improving your communication skills to achieve desired outcomes. Transcript: Wes Kao I often see operators who explain things poorly and then are shocked and horrified when people are confused or there’s skepticism, there’s apathy, there’s a lot of avoidable questions. And I’m a big proponent of asking myself, if I’m not getting the reaction that I’m looking for, how might I be contributing to that? So, you know, instead of blaming other people for not understanding me, I think about how could I explain this more clearly? How can I be more compelling? How can I anticipate any questions that they might have? So I’m a big proponent of agency and realizing that we can only control our own behavior. And so the best place to start if you’re not getting the reaction you’re looking for is reflecting on how can I get better at the skill of communicating? And it absolutely is a skill. (Time 0:07:17)
  • Practice Makes Perfect
    • Practice clear communication consistently with all stakeholders, not just executives.
    • Treat everyone’s time as valuable and practice “playing like it’s game day” in every interaction. Transcript: Wes Kao I think another big one that I teach in my course and really kick off with is practicing like it’s game day, playing like it’s game day. So I see a lot of operators who save their best behavior for executives only. So, you know, they want to shine when they’re presenting to senior leadership, but with everyone else, they’re kind of calling it it. And I just don’t think that you’re going to be able to get enough reps to actually get good at executive communication if you are only doing it with executives. Because many us only present to execs once a month, right? Or a couple times a quarter. And that’s just not a lot of chances to practice. So really treating every single stakeholder as if they are important because they are. And you shouldn’t be, you know, if you don’t want to waste your CEO’s time, you also shouldn’t waste your cross-functional team member’s time or your manager’s time or your direct reports Time. So that’s something else that ask folks to keep in mind. (Time 0:08:46)
  • Sales Before Logistics
    • Start by “selling” your idea—explain why it matters and why now, before diving into logistics.
    • Secure buy-in before discussing how to execute to avoid apathy or pushback. Transcript: Lenny Rachitsky Okay. So the first is something you call sales, then logistics. What is that about? Wes Kao Yes. So a common mistake that I see is overestimating the amount of buy-in that you have from your audience. So that looks like jumping straight into talking about the logistics, the details of the how to do something, of the process, when in reality, your audience has not yet decided if they Even want to do the thing. So what I see operators do in response then is go even deeper into the logistics and the how, thinking that, oh, if I just explain this more, then that person will want to do it. When really a sales note is different than a logistics note. A sales note is meant to get people excited to do the thing you want them to do and to agree to do it. And only then, after they have bought in, does it make sense to share the logistics. So there’s an order of operations here. If you switch the order of operations, you will likely get a slow response or just no response, right? We’ve all put a Slack message in a channel and got crickets and tumbleweed. So really starting off with selling the person and making sure that they know why we’re doing this, why this matters to the company, why now, and then sharing logistics tends to be a lot More effective. Is (Time 0:11:00)
  • Weekly Wins Example
    • An executive struggled to get team buy-in for sharing weekly wins because she led with logistics.
    • She could have improved by first selling the benefits: motivation, visibility, and team recognition. Transcript: Lenny Rachitsky There an example of that that might help illustrate that point or that approach? Wes Kao She was trying to get the rest of her executive team, which she was a part of, to fill in some wins for the week so that they could share this out with the whole company. And this was going to be motivating. It was going to shine a light on folks. And she led with the logistics of which document to send, you know, to put the details in, what time to put it in by, the format that you should put these wins, and didn’t really get much Of a response from the leadership team, which makes sense, right? Because this totally sounds like one of those things that’s another item to check off on your list when you already have so many other things to do. And here’s this other process that, like, we’re all supposed to do now. Like, yay, right? And so she wasn’t really getting a response. And that’s because she dove straight into logistics. Whereas what she could have done is start by selling folks, selling the other executives on why are we doing this? Who are doing amazing work, for them to feel motivated and to feel like the rest of the company really sees them and understands what they’re doing. And this is all something that is going to motivate your team, right? So sharing why this is helpful and useful and how this is in service of you and your team versus like, oh, this is a favor that you’re doing for me to fill out this form and fill it out this Way. And by this date, et cetera, et cetera. I (Time 0:12:22)
  • The Essence of Concision
    • Concision is not about brevity but the density of insight and economy of words.
    • Prepare thoroughly to be concise; the clearer you are beforehand, the more effectively you can communicate. Transcript: Lenny Rachitsky Okay. You mentioned being concise. Let’s talk about that. You have some really good advice on just how, how to effectively be concise and not too concise. What’s your advice there? Yes. Wes Kao One of my pet peeves is when people are too concise and they equate being concise with brief, being brief. And being concise is not about absolute word count. It’s about economy of words. It’s about the density of the insight that you’re sharing. And so you can have a 300-word memo that’s meandering and long-winded and a thousand word memo that is tight and concise. And so not equating concision with briefness, I think, is a really big one to understand. The second thing is a lot of advice about being concise, I think, misses an important point. So, you know, we’ve all heard don’t bury the lead, cut to the chase, main point, you know, put the main point at the top, bottom line, not front, right? And all of these pithy aphorisms assume that you actually know what your core point is. So you can’t cut to the chase unless you know what the chase is. You know, you can’t unbury the lead unless you know what the lead is. And so that, I found, is the bottleneck to being concise. It’s actually not really being clear of what you were thinking. That’s what’s leading to being long-winded. And you can kind of test this theory because most of us have a go-to story that we’ve told a bunch of times, right? We’re like, you know exactly when people are going to laugh, you know, when they’re going to gasp or hold their breath, right? And why are you so good at telling that story? And why are you so concise about it? Because you’ve told it a bunch of times, you know, you know, all of the beats. So in meetings, though, at work, we are very rarely talking about the same thing that many times. It’s always something new. It’s something that we are also probably likely processing ourselves and are in the midst of processing as we are in a quick turnaround time telling someone else about it, telling our Team about it. And so you are basically asking your brain to do a lot of different processes, especially in a real-time conversation. You’re listening to the other person, absorbing, making sense of it, processing it, figuring out what you think and how you would react, and then trying to say something cohesive that Makes sense, right? And then trying to be concise about it. So it’s just a lot of different processes. And so the only solution I found consistently to being concise is preparation. (Time 0:18:20)
  • Signposting for Clarity
    • Use signposting words (e.g., “for example,” “because,” “as a next step”) to guide readers through your writing.
    • This adds structure, highlights key information, and helps regain reader attention. Transcript: Lenny Rachitsky It’s called signposting. What is signposting? Wes Kao Signposting is using certain words, phrases, formatting, and an overall structure in your writing that helps guide your reader and signals what is coming in the rest of the post. So this is especially helpful if you have a long memo. It adds structure to where are we going and what certain sections of paragraphs are about. So some of my favorite signposting words are, for example, shows that you’re about to show an example because shows that you’re about to share your logic and rationale behind something As a next step is a great one. People’s eyes kind of automatically zoom to as a next step, even first, second, third, kicking off a paragraph with that. You’re not needing to rely on rich text formatting with bolding, italics, underlines, and all that craziness. If you kick off sentences with signposting words, you can often signal, here’s what I’m about to talk about in this paragraph. (Time 0:27:34)
  • Confidence Calibration
    • Speak accurately about your level of conviction and avoid stating hypotheses as facts.
    • Be confident when you have strong reasoning, but don’t diminish your expertise when sharing insights. Transcript: Wes Kao Find that people tend to naturally be on the spectrum a little bit too confident as a baseline or not confident enough. So people who are too confident might state hypotheses as if they are fact. So that really bothers me. That’s another one of my pet peeves where, you know, if you say this is X or this will X, that is different than saying this could X or this might X or this will increase the likelihood of X. So I’m a big proponent of speaking accurately. You can avoid a lot of problems if you speak accurately about your level of conviction and about the actual amount of evidence that you have for something. It’s okay for something to be an initial hunch. Say it’s an initial hunch. Don’t act like this is something that you are super sure about. You’ve proven out that this know, this way because the rest of your team is listening to you at face value. And y’all might spend real headcount and dollars pursuing something that you have advocated for in a way where you kind of overreached with your level of confidence. So that’s for people who are overconfident. It’s equally a problem if you’re underconfident. So I have some clients who, you know, their CEO asked them to share some recommendations with another team because, you know, they’ve run something before. And so they share all this amazing information. And at the end, they’re like, oh, but you can ignore everything I just said. You know, obviously, make your own decision, do what you think is best. And like, if you want to just ignore everything, that’s totally cool, too. You know, and it’s like, you just didn’t have to say that, you know, you could say, make your own decision, like take all this into account, you know, but like, you don’t have to diminish To that degree. And so again, speaking accurately, like if you have really strong reasons to recommend something to, you know, to a cross-functional team, it’s almost irresponsible to act like you Are not really sure. And it’s just this like random idea. Hey, try it if you want to try it. You know, like we might lose a lot of money and time if we don’t take this idea. Right. So, again, speaking accurately is so, so important. Is (Time 0:42:41)
  • Anticipate Objections
    • Anticipate potential objections (MOO: Most Obvious Objection) before presenting your ideas.
    • Addressing these proactively strengthens your argument and shows preparedness. Transcript: Lenny Rachitsky Okay. I’m going to get to a couple more tactics and then I’m going to shift directions to talk about managers and being a manager. You have an awesome framework called MOO. What is MOO? What does it stand for? And what is it all about? Wes Kao MOO stands for most obvious objection, M-O And the thought there is that a lot of times we’re surprised by the questions that we get, especially in meetings where we feel blindsided. That was unexpected. And then we’re on our back foot. When really, if you thought for even two minutes about what are obvious objections that I’m likely to get when I share this, you often immediately come up with what some of those things Are. So are you going to be able to anticipate every single objection? No. But can you anticipate the obvious ones? Absolutely. And this is where knowing your own argument in and out, including counter arguments, becomes so important. So knowing your counter arguments as well as you know the arguments for doing the thing. You do that, when you have prepared in that way, you’re less likely to feel caught off guard. Lenny Rachitsky When you hear you talk about this, it’s like, obviously, I shouldn’t do this. But very few people actually do this, like actually spend a couple minutes. Okay, here’s what I’m going to pitch. Wes Kao Even a couple seconds, really. Like, really, like even a couple seconds, your brain will think of something. Lenny Rachitsky Is there a story or an example of this that you share that highlights this idea of the power of Moo? Wes Kao I use Moo multiple times a day, every day, every single day. Like, literally whatever I’m about to say, I think, how might someone disagree with this? Or what might an objection be? So whatever it is I’m writing, saying, it’s a really good mental filter because it encourages you to think a couple steps ahead in kind of a structured way, right? Like if I’m about to say this, the person may then say this to me. Well, if I take that into account, I can volunteer that information up front. Or I can frame it in a way where they’re less likely to think that that’s an issue. And so it’s muscle memory for me at this point. But this might be something we include at the end as something to start with. But putting Moo on a post-it, most obvious objection. What is someone likely to object about? And then just keeping that top of mind. It’s a great way to train yourself to be, to empathize with your audience and with your recipient. We all say that and we all know we should do it. But for me, this is a really tactical, concrete way to do it. (Time 0:50:16)
  • Managing Up Effectively
    • Share your point of view and recommendations proactively with your manager, rather than just asking for direction.
    • This demonstrates strategic thinking and reduces your manager’s cognitive load. Transcript: Lenny Rachitsky One of my most popular posts in the early days was advice for managing up and just how important it is. What advice do you have for someone to get better at managing up? Why is that even so important? Why do you think people maybe underappreciate how important it is to manage up, manage your manager, let’s say? Wes Kao One of the most common myths about managing up that I definitely felt early on in my career was that I would have to manage up if I were more junior, but eventually I would outgrow it, that I would get senior enough that I would no longer have to do it. And it was a rude awakening that no matter how senior got, managing up, I not only had to manage up, it actually became more important. So I think managing up is one of those skills that if you invest in learning it, it serves you now and for the rest of your career. And I realized that many senior people are actually the best at managing up. That’s partially how they got to be so senior in the first place. But also, you know, the more senior you get, the less likely that your manager is going to give you really well-defined tasks and problems on a silver platter and ask you to solve them. You’re going to be dealing with more ambiguity and you’re going to be dealing with sometimes a mandate like make this number go up or like create this division, right, where you need To manage up and make sure that your leader, your manager is in the loop about what you are about to try and what you’re about to do and make sure that they’re aligned. For me, realizing that managing up is something that is ongoing and that it shifts and evolves and looks different as you go in your career. That was a big unlock for me. Lenny Rachitsky Just that even as you, like if you become even a VP, if you become a director and still something you want to invest in, any specific tactic or advice for how to manage up well? Wes Kao The biggest one is to share your point of view. So this, you know, some people are surprised by because they think I’m going to say, do a weekly recap of the tasks that you worked on or like, you know, what you contributed. If you want to do it, you can do it. But I think the more highly leveraged way to contribute and manage up is by being more vocal about sharing your point of view. When you just ask your manager, hey, manager, what should we do? You’re putting a lot of cognitive load on your manager to need to think about the problem, think about potential solutions, craft the solution, and then tell you what to do. Whereas if you instead said, hey, manager, here’s what I think we should do. How does that sound? Where do you see gaps? Am I thinking in the right direction? You give them something to build off of. And that reduces the amount of mental lift that they have to put forth. And so sharing your point of view more readily, backing it up with evidence, that’s a wonderful way of making your manager’s life easier. And also showing that you are an active, rigorous thinker who is thinking strategically about the business. You’re not just waiting to be told what to do. You’re not expecting them to figure things out and then tell you. You are actively looking around the corner, trying to solve problems, forming hypotheses in your mind, observing and noticing things. And again, sharing your point of view doesn’t mean that you have the perfect answer. You can share that, hey, I’ve noticed this problem popping up in a couple of different places. Here’s what I think might be happening. Or when you share a report, don’t only share the report and expect your manager to come up with insights and takeaways. You should look at the report too and point out insights and takeaways. So it’s really changing that posture from more reactive and more waiting to be told what to do or kind of staying in this narrow box to being willing to share your recommendation, your Point of view, share what you’re noticing. (Time 0:59:03)
  • Feedback for Behavior Change
    • Prioritize behavior change as your goal. Focus feedback on motivating improvement, not expressing frustration.
    • Trim unnecessary negativity and focus on how the change benefits them and others. Transcript: Lenny Rachitsky We have a couple more really cool tactics that people have suggested we talk about. One is how to give feedback well, how to do better, how to be more effective at giving feedback. What’s your advice there? Wes Kao I have a framework called strategy, not self-expression. And so the idea here is that most of the time, by the time we are giving feedback to someone, we have been frustrated for a while. I used to be very conflict-averse, so I would wait and try to convince myself that I wasn’t bothered by something until I really couldn’t hold it in anymore. Then I would schedule a one-on with a co-worker to tell them the feedback, and it would inevitably turn into a venting session where I was, in the name of sharing the impact of what they Did, would share all of my frustrations and all the ways that they have basically harmed me and made my life difficult. And this would be very counterproductive because the person would either feel like shit and feel really demoralized or they’d get really defensive and they’d want to argue with me About how what they did actually was like not that bad or it was partially my fault too or whatever. And so I realized that a better way of getting feedback is thinking about motivating the person’s behavior change. The goal is behavior change. So if that’s the goal, trim everything else that you were about to say that does not actually contribute to that goal and only keep the part that will make the person want to change, help Them understand the benefit to them as well as to the people around them. And so usually for me, that’s trimming 90% of the initial stuff that I want to say and really keeping only that 10%. And that’s made a really big difference. Whenever I am giving constructive feedback of any kind, I always keep that in mind. And when I don’t do it, I almost always regret it. Lenny Rachitsky Someone closer to me in my life is working on the skill, which is like, there’s just like, I want people to know how mess they messed up uh justice i need this to be fair and there’s like a Like what i always recommend is just think about what you want to get out of this conversation like what do you want from them and then okay what’s the best way to get that versus just making Sure they hear you and making sure they understand how screwed up this was and that’s basically what you’re saying, right? Is like focus on the outcome you want to achieve, not like something that’s useful, like something that will make you just feel better. Wes Kao Yeah, I definitely think that having a space to vent and to share those frustrations is important. So you want to get that out before you go into the conversation with your counterpart. So whether it’s talking to your therapist or your partner or friend, you want to basically get all that energy out because otherwise you bring it into the conversation and it doesn’t Take much to set you off. Like you might have a whole script, you’re controlled, you’re calm, and then you start talking and the other person raises an eyebrow and is like, you know, acting a little incredulous At what you’re saying. And that’s all it takes for you to snap and be like, you’re surprised. You’re incredulous. Why are you incredulous? Like, right. Like, and then, and then you’re off. Right. So yeah, getting that, getting that energy out, I would say step one so that you can go into the conversation, clear, grounded, setting that emotional tone that is more positive. And that allows you to stay focused on only the part that will get them to behave in the way you want them to behave. (Time 1:04:54)
  • Effective Delegation
    • Use the CEDAF framework for effective delegation: Comprehension, Excitement, De-risk, Align, Feedback.
    • Shorter feedback loops are crucial; brainstorm next steps within the delegation conversation itself. Transcript: Lenny Rachitsky They want to just, I just want this to be really good. I don’t trust that it’s going to go as well. If I did it my way, it would be great. So just advice on how to delegate effectively while maintaining high standards. Yeah. Wes Kao I have a framework called CEDAF, C-E I love all these acronyms. Lenny Rachitsky These are awesome. Wes Kao It’s kind of like CEDAR, but with an F at the end. I need acronyms for myself. Like all of these are really reminders for myself because I need a short way to remind myself. So CDAS stands for the C is comprehension. So have I given this person that I’m delegating to everything that they need to understand what it is that I want them to do? That includes more simple things like logins to all the right software tools that they need to look up, whatever you need to look up, and understanding what the end results should look Like. Right? So that’s all under C for comprehension. E is excitement. Am I explaining this in a way that is making this as exciting as it could be? There are a lot of tasks that aren’t inherently that exciting. But by explaining the why behind why we’re doing this or why it’s important to the project we’re working on, that makes people more likely to understand and be excited about how this Fits into everything. So E is for excitement. D is for de-risk. Am I de-risking any obvious risks from delegating this? So usually when I ask clients this, they immediately think of something. They’re like, oh yeah, I wouldn’t want my direct report to spend a ton of time going in the wrong direction, filling out a hundred rows of the spreadsheet if actually it took longer than We expected. Okay, great. If that’s a risk, then maybe you have them do 10 rows. See how long it takes. See if we need all the information that they’re actually gathering and then regroup, right? So what’s an obvious risk? Another might be, you know, I can see this person misunderstanding and thinking I’m looking for this or I’m really looking for that. Okay, perfect. Just tell them, you know, when I explain this, you might think I mean this, but really, I don’t want that. I actually want this. Right. So just vocalize it. The A is for align. So am I giving the other person a chance to speak up and make sure we are actually aligned, that they are picking up what I’m putting down? Right. Because you might you might be explaining you into stuff, but how much are they actually absorbing? You won’t ever know if you wrap up your little spiel and then say like, okay, go off, like come back to me when you’re done, right? So give people a chance to ask questions to see what parts are resonating, what parts they might be a little bit confused on. Usually when I do this, it’s amazing because my team member will say, you know, what did you mean by this part? Or like, how does this part fit in? I’m like, oh my God, I totally forgot to like mention this thing. Or, oh yeah, I didn’t even really explain that well. Okay, so let me, let’s go into that, right? And then F is feedback. So how can you have the shortest feedback loop possible? I am a huge fan of shorting the feedback loop as much as possible and then shortening it again. So even within that initial conversation where I’m delegating something, instead of waiting a week, what if we waited a day and checked in on the initial direction that person was going? And let’s do it even more. What if after I finish explaining, at the end of that conversation, we brainstormed a couple of things that that person wants to do? So within this same conversation I’m delegating, I’m already getting a sense of, you know, where do you want to go with this? Once you start, like, do you see any bottlenecks, you know? And so just really keeping that feedback loop super tight. I found that when I run through the CDEF acronym, there’s usually one letter that I could amp up a little bit more. Like, oh, like, I didn’t really put much thought into making this exciting for the person. How can I connect this to their career goals or to the company’s priorities this quarter or to something else, right? (Time 1:09:52)
  • The Swipe File
    • Create a “swipe file” to collect inspiring examples of effective communication (quotes, designs, strategies).
    • This trains you to recognize and analyze what works well, improving your own communication skills. Transcript: Lenny Rachitsky What is a swipe file? What is that about? What can help you with? Why should people be doing this? Wes Kao Yeah, so swipe files are really common for marketers. And I think other functions haven’t caught on as much, but I think is really, really useful. And basically, swipe file is collecting inspiration that you can refer back to later on. So, you know, some marketers will collect examples of copy, landing pages, ads, etc. For me, I have a file, an Apple Notes file called Smart Things People Have Said, where I will basically paste in phrases, words, you know, things people have said that I thought were well Articulated or sounded really intelligent or sounded strategic. And I don’t actually go back and look through my swipe file very often. I think other people do. But for me, even the act of adding it to my swipe file, I’ve already gotten value from it because it’s training me to be more alert to noticing when something is working well. I think there’s so much happening around us all the time that, you know, your coworker says something smart and like, oh, that was nice. And then you keep moving on, right? But when you stop and pause and think, oh, that was really effective. Like, let me add it to my file. And also think about why was that effective? And is that something I can borrow? So in my course, I encourage folks to create a work journal where they can jot down some of these observations, some of these phrases, and basically encourage yourself to be more alert To things you can borrow from other people all around you. Lenny Rachitsky Something else about the swipe file, like you use quotes. It could be screenshots of cool designs. It could be strategy docs you found to be really effective. It could be conversion flows that are really cool, right? It could be just like whatever you’re interested in. Yeah. Wes Kao And the great thing about that is you can then go back and analyze it and break down the structure, break down the argument, break down why was this so effective? Whereas if you’re not capturing it, it’s easy to just move on to the next thing. (Time 1:16:58)