This is a seminal concept in executive communication, and has spread like a virus from McKinsey to every other con… “We were inventing all the major analytical frameworks still in use today, and writing manuals about them.”. The Pyramid Principle is the answer to this question. Look familiar? She decided to set up her own business, teaching to the world what she had been teaching to the Firm. The Pyramid Principle was created by Barbara Minto at McKinsey as a method of structuring communications for maximum impact. Please email us at: Engineering, Construction & Building Materials, Travel, Logistics & Transport Infrastructure, McKinsey Institute for Black Economic Mobility. “I invented it, so I get to say it how to pronounce it,” she says. The communication of ideas, whether to colleagues or clients, is one of the key factors in determining personal success. Networker. The Minto Pyramid Principle: Logic in Writing, Thinking, & Problem Solving Pyramid Principle Structure . In addition to teaching McKinsey’s consultants and many of its clients, as well as members of the other major consulting firms, she has lectured at the Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Chicago, London and Manchester business schools, and at the State University of New York. Since this book came out, McKinsey has made it standard training material. 13-jun-2017 - These top 500 Consulting Powerpoint Slide Templates & Infographics were created by our ex-McKinsey, Deloitte & BCG Management Consultants. [4] It was developed in the late 1960s by Barbara Minto at McKinsey & Company and underlies her Minto Pyramid Principle, [3] and is based on ideas going back as far as Aristotle. “It was in fact a golden time to be at McKinsey, an exciting time to be in consulting, because there was a lot of thinking about structure,” says Barbara. Put in simpler terms, it starts with asking for what you want, and explaining why you want it. After leaving the company in 1973, she began her own consulting business. Flip the odds. “Well, it wasn’t really I, actually, it was Aristotle,” she says, “but I was the first one to abbreviate it and apply it to analyzing groups of ideas.”. Our flagship business publication has been defining and informing the senior-management agenda since 1964. Believe it or not, Barbara Minto … In 1963, Barbara graduated from Harvard Business School, which had only just begun granting MBA degrees to women. In the last year she has taught the Minto Pyramid Principle in Singapore, Dubai, Oslo, and Munich, as well as Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco. Unleash their potential. The idea is to present logic like a pyramid. Barbara Minto was the first female consultant at McKinsey and was tasked with improving communications in the USA and later in the newly opened international offices in Europe. At McKinsey, one of the lessons I learned was the importance of structured thinking and communication. Put in simpler terms, it starts with asking for what you want, and explaining why you want it. Our mission is to help leaders in multiple sectors develop a deeper understanding of the global economy. The Pyramid Principle is the international best-seller on how to produce crisp, clear, compelling business writing. The idea is to present logic like a pyramid. You can’t derive an idea from a grouping unless the ideas in the grouping are logically the same, and in logical order.”, The concept required the groups of ideas to be MECE—divided pieces that were mutually exclusive of each other and collectively exhaustive in terms of the whole. The MECE principle, pronounced "ME-see", is a grouping principle for separating a set of items into subsets that are mutually exclusive (ME) and collectively exhaustive (CE). Among her vivid memories is the U.K. miners' strike of 1972, when energy shortages across London forced the repeated early closure of the office in Jermyn Street. Helpful. Each course is limited to 10-14 people, each of whom gets a book and a thorough analysis of his or her current approach to writing. The Pyramid Principle shows how to structure and present arguments so that they gain immediate understanding. Her pyramid principle works really well with the consulting problem solving process as it is a natural partner for hypothesis-driven thinking. Flip the odds. How To Structure An Idea With The Pyramid Principle? Developed by Barbara Minto from McKinsey to find a method for the consultants to structure their advice and consulting reports. The Pyramid Principle is a distillation of Minto’s 20 years of experience in corporate reporting and writing with McKinsey & Company. Barbara and her colleagues found refuge nearby in a warm pub. She based her thinking around ideas ranging from Aristotle’s Rhetoric and other sources on logic throughout history. The idea is to start with your main idea, and then use logically grouped arguments to support your position. Says Barbara, “The pyramid is a tool to help you find out what you think.”, “I saw it meant there were only three logical rules to obey,” she says. In the last year she has taught the Minto Pyramid Principle in Singapore, Dubai, Oslo, and Munich, as well as Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco. “[She] was so successful,” he said, “that eventually I guess every office in the Firm used her on a part-time basis to try to improve the report-writing ability of Associates, which often wasn’t exactly what it should have been for graduates of places like Harvard Business School.”. Despite its high price tag, Barbara Minto's method for succinct and clear business writing is a phenomenal tool. We usually say it “Mee-cee”, but Barbara pronounces it with one syllable, meece, rhyming with "niece" or "Greece.". The technique is most useful for those people in an organization who must write analytical documents, on the basis of which senior managers must make decisions. Barbara Minto was with the Firm for only 10 years, but the mark she left is permanent. In 1966, Barbara moved to London. “The point above has to be a summary of those below, because it is derived from them. That handsome volume has 12 chapters, three appendices, and an entire section devoted to problem solving. A successful business consultant, she created an effective tool to draft everyday business documents. “The great value of the technique is that it forces you to pull out of your head information that you weren’t aware was there, and then helps you to develop and shape it until the thinking is crystal clear. Barbara Minto developed The Minto Pyramid Principle through her early work as a consultant at McKinsey & Company, Inc. 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