Communication — landing the recommendation

Three moves for getting the answer accepted and acted on: build the narrative, align the stakeholders who must say yes, and write the one-page decision. These overlap the consulting-deck skill (storyline, exec summary) — use that for slide/exhibit craft; use these for the underlying argument and the politics of the decision. Firm idioms in references/firm-lenses.md.

---

Narrative Builder (narrative-builder)

Build the recommendation story so it lands in the first thirty seconds and survives the toughest room.

Method: (1) Find the one governing thought (the answer) — compress the whole recommendation into a single sentence containing the action and the reason ("raise list prices 8% in the premium tier because we're leaving margin competitors aren't"), leading with the so-what / the prize. One sentence the most senior person could repeat in the elevator and act on. (2) Build the Pyramid beneath it — exactly three MECE supporting arguments (enough to be complete, few enough to remember), evidence stacked beneath each (never leading); pressure-test top-down (each argument supports the thought) and bottom-up (the three together force the conclusion); argument headlines assert a claim with a verb, not a topic label. (3) Write the SCQA opening — Situation (agreed common ground), Complication (the change that makes the status quo untenable — this is where "why now" lives and does the work), Question (the single question the complication forces), Answer (the governing thought). If the audience doesn't feel the tension, they won't feel the need to decide. (4) Engage head and heart — the head wants the rational case (numbers, value logic, fit); the heart wants a reason to care (the stakes, the cost of inaction, the picture of full potential). A purely logical case is correct and forgettable. (5) Produce the Day-1 slide — one slide carrying the whole story (action-titled headline = governing thought, three boxes for the three supports with lead evidence), legible with no presenter. (6) Write the four lengths — 30 seconds (thought + so-what), 2 minutes (SCQA + three supports + ask), 10 minutes (the Pyramid walked with lead evidence), 60 minutes (full case + sensitivities + alternatives). Same story compressed or expanded, never a different story — consistency across lengths tests whether the Pyramid is sound. (7) Prepare hostile questions in advance — the ten hardest a skeptic / CFO / rival could ask; each answer concedes what's true, defends what matters, and returns to the governing thought.

Output: the governing thought, the three-support Pyramid with evidence, the SCQA opening, a head-and-heart moment, the Day-1 slide, the four lengths, and a one-page hostile-Q&A sheet (every answer returning to the recommendation).

---

Stakeholder Alignment (stakeholder-alignment)

Map who must say yes, read the commitment risk, and engineer a sequence that wins the room before it meets.

Method: (1) Frame the decision and assign RAPID roles — the single decision in one sentence; name exactly who Recommends, must Agree (formal veto), Performs, gives Input, and the single person who Decides. Name one Decider (a fuzzy/shared D is the most common failure); distinguish the formal Agree from real quiet veto power. (2) Map stakeholders on influence × interest — plot every named player, overlay RAPID roles, assign a posture per quadrant (high/high = manage closely; high influence/low interest = keep satisfied so they don't wake up late and block; high interest/low influence = inform and recruit as advocates; low/low = monitor); name the swing votes (genuinely undecided and movable). (3) Write a motivation analysis per key player (head and heart) — what they want (stated and unstated objectives, incentives, what makes them look good) and what they fear (career risk, loss of control, a past failure, exposure to their boss); a player rationally convinced but emotionally threatened still blocks you; note the specific behavior change being asked of Perform roles, where quiet resistance lives. (4) Read commitment risk (DICE) — Duration to lock-in and the checkpoints where support can erode, Integrity of the champions, Commitment genuineness, Effort being asked; flag fragile support (the polite nod that isn't a yes; the Agree supportive in private but silent in the room). (5) Design an engagement card per swing vote — message (the single so-what tailored to their motivation), channel (1:1, pre-read, trusted lieutenant, respected peer), timing, owner; the same recommendation pitched as growth to the ambitious, risk reduction to the cautious, fairness to the overlooked. (6) Sequence the engagement so momentum compounds — start with a friendly high-influence anchor, spend that yes to de-risk the next conversation, isolate the hardest blocker until the room has shifted; never let two undecided high-influence players first hear the idea from each other in the meeting. (7) Pre-mortem the decision meeting, then pre-wire it — list the three likeliest failure modes (surprise objection, coalition that didn't hold, derailing tangent, missing number) with a counter each; design the meeting so every Agree and the Decider has seen the recommendation and voiced concerns privately — the meeting ratifies, it doesn't discover.

Output: named RAPID roles (exactly one Decider), an influence × interest map with named swing votes, a head-and-heart motivation read per key player, a fragile-points read, a tailored engagement card per swing vote, a causal conversation sequence, and a pre-mortem + pre-wire checklist.

---

Decision Memo (decision-memo)

Turn the analysis into a one-page decision document an executive can act on.

Method: (1) State the decision question precisely and name the Decider — a binary or clear choice ("acquire Company A for up to X, or build in-house over 18 months?"), not a topic; name the RAPID Decider, required Agrees, the deadline, and what's reversible vs irreversible. (2) Answer first — open with the recommendation in one sentence (the decider knows your answer before your reasons); structure the rationale as a Pyramid (recommendation → three MECE supports → evidence), leading with the strongest argument. Suspense is a defect. (3) Lay out the options against explicit criteria — the real options including the status quo and the most credible alternative (a one-option memo is advocacy, not analysis); define the criteria the decision turns on (value / gap-to-full-potential closed, fit, risk, speed, reversibility, capital) so the reader sees why the recommended option wins and the others lose. (4) Make the full-potential so-what explicit — what value the option creates, how much of the gap it closes, against what hurdle, over what horizon, in units the CFO would accept. (5) Name what would have to be true for the recommendation to be wrong — the 2–3 load-bearing assumptions, what would break each, your confidence, and the one whose failure flips the answer (plus how you'd detect it) — pre-empting the decider's skepticism makes the case more credible, not less. (6) Close with the specific ask, owners, and next steps — the exact decision (approve / reject / choose, with amount, scope, date), then immediate next steps each with a named owner and date (no passive voice). (7) Compress to one page — cut anything that doesn't change the decision.

Output: a one-page memo — answerable decision question + named single Decider, recommendation in the first two lines, ≥2 real options compared (incl. status quo), value logic framed as gap-to-full-potential closed, a "what would make this wrong" block with a kill switch, and an exact ask with owners and dates.