Pyramid Principle Consulting Methodology
The Pyramid Principle
Logic in writing and thinking.
How can you grasp the attention of your audience in a couple of minutes? How can you create a compelling story with a logical structure that is easy to understand and easy to remember. If you have to convince customers and have limited time for a presentation with busy executives this can be quite a challenge. But how can we do this?
The Pyramid Principle is the answer to this question. Developed by Barbara Minto from McKinsey to find a method for the consultants to structure their advice and consulting reports. Nowadays every
McKinsey Consultant is trained to learn and apply this method and it is also used by many other consulting companies worldwide. Consulting Methodology made the Minto Pyramid Principle an essential part of the Issue Based Consulting training program. Together with some other techniques
Issue Based Consulting is the ultimate consulting toolkit.
This white paper explains briefly what the Pyramid Principle is and how it works.
Some facts
Some facts about people (our customers included):
People tend not to listen to things they already know.
Only if it is of interest, people want to find out what they don’t know.
If people hear something they don’t know, it raises questions.
Making a statement to your audience that tells them something they don’t know, will automatically raise a question in their minds. Why? How? Is this true? Etc. The listener will be focussed to hear an answer to this question. A question-answer dialogue like that will ensure the listeners attention.
Keep in mind however the topic must be of interest of your listener. That requires some knowledge about your audience or your customer. What is on their mind? What kind of problems and challenges do they have? As a consultant or sales representative this is something you should know or find out if you don’t know this yet.
After raising a question, the answers you give, might again be new to the listener and raise more
Logic in writing and thinking.
How can you grasp the attention of your audience in a couple of minutes? How can you create a compelling story with a logical structure that is easy to understand and easy to remember. If you have to convince customers and have limited time for a presentation with busy executives this can be quite a challenge. But how can we do this?
The Pyramid Principle is the answer to this question. Developed by Barbara Minto from McKinsey to find a method for the consultants to structure their advice and consulting reports. Nowadays every
McKinsey Consultant is trained to learn and apply this method and it is also used by many other consulting companies worldwide. Consulting Methodology made the Minto Pyramid Principle an essential part of the Issue Based Consulting training program. Together with some other techniques
Issue Based Consulting is the ultimate consulting toolkit.
This white paper explains briefly what the Pyramid Principle is and how it works.
Some facts
Some facts about people (our customers included):
People tend not to listen to things they already know.
Only if it is of interest, people want to find out what they don’t know.
If people hear something they don’t know, it raises questions.
Making a statement to your audience that tells them something they don’t know, will automatically raise a question in their minds. Why? How? Is this true? Etc. The listener will be focussed to hear an answer to this question. A question-answer dialogue like that will ensure the listeners attention.
Keep in mind however the topic must be of interest of your listener. That requires some knowledge about your audience or your customer. What is on their mind? What kind of problems and challenges do they have? As a consultant or sales representative this is something you should know or find out if you don’t know this yet.
After raising a question, the answers you give, might again be new to the listener and raise more