Originally published as an Advisory Hour Substack post on 2026-08-20. This first-party site copy preserves the text, localizes public supporting media, and connects the record to its project trail.
Original post
It’s that time again. Writing insights from the guy that’s learning to write. The moon is nearly full, and so the mystics tell me that means that I must draw in what I’ve learned to share a new insight I’ve had on writing. “Just get better at it, Eric.”
I know, Chat. I know.
This technique today comes from said popular AI assistant. See, ChatGPT recommended Minto’s Pyramid technique as something I should experiment with more often. Barbara Minto invented the technique as a simple method that clarifies badly written business writing and powerpoints during her time at McKinsey. This was 1963. The school system hasn’t done anyone any favors. Clarity in writing is still a problem.
What’s going on in a Minto Pyramid is pushing the conclusion to the very first line, and then re-organizing everything after it. The goal of the pyramid is to take your reasoning and organize it into a hierarchy that fits nicely into a powerpoint deck, and I’ve noticed it helps to improve even a substack post (Just not this one-I’m working on it). If you’ve seen a consultant’s deck before, then you’ve likely been covertly introduced to the Minto Pyramid. It works.
The core rule is recursive. Every higher-level statement summarizes or synthesizes the statements immediately beneath it. The governing idea must derive from the ideas beneath it. The base of the pyramid are the facts of the entire project.
In traditional writing for engineering or academics, it’s often reversed. I’m very, very guilty of the non-pyramidal writing. I like to tell the story of the failures, the wrong trails, the insights and epiphanies along the way. It’s because I also enjoy reading such tellings, too. In fact, I have an entire bookshelf of journals I’ve collected from all corners of the world. The journey is the point. And then ChatGPT tells me I’m right, but also wrong.
ChatGPT encouraged me to continue writing in my usual style. The balance of writings was what needed to be changed. It asked about 30% or so of my writings make use of the pyramid technique. No more than 30%. It was very clear about this. ChatGPT was concerned my writing would over-optimize into consultant speak if I overdo it. The point isn’t to write like McKinsey. It’s to improve clarity of thought.
Annoyed that ChatGPT might be wrong, I went to YouTube where I learned I was wrong and ChatGPT was right. The Minto Pyramid is useful for powerpoints, but also for reasoning. It’s hard. I’ve tried practice exercises with ChatGPT on various topics to better learn the approach. It’s tricky because I like to present the facts as if they’re obvious and self-serving. I assume everyone connects the dots. You may notice that in my writing in my substack. It just never occurs to me to write down my inference-it’s one thing to drawn clear conclusions out of data. It is quite another thing to write down what it is your brain is thinking as you come up with those conclusions.
If you’ve never tried writing down your inference activity, then I encourage you to try it. The exercise is hard. The Minto Pyramid itself is a challenge itself. The pyramid deconstructs down in common practice as providing a claim, three pillars supporting that claim, and then the evidence that supports it. The common engineering email, powerpoint or message flips this typically: here’s the facts, here’s three things drawn from those facts, and then here’s the conclusion. Even Indiana Jones was careful what pyramid he entered.
I encourage you to bring the Minto Pyramid up with your own favorite AI tool. Poke at the technique and see if it’s an intuitive thing you’re already doing-or if like me, you thought you were. The idea of the pyramid is nearly holographic: the pyramid should exist at several levels of your writings simultaneously. Which in a way, includes this entire post, too.
It’s not just about an executive summary-it’s about the specific kind of recursion you place into the writing, how you organize the data, and how that data backs your claim. If you’re familiar with the Stephen Toulmin process for arguments, this may even feel familiar in a shadow-esque kind of way: claim, grounds, warrants, backing, qualifier, and rebuttal. Another writing style, for another day.
Connected work
- Every Paragraph Is a Universe: Follow another writing exercise from one stubborn sentence into a much larger room.
- Writing Exercise: Palimpsest: Try a craft exercise about revision, memory, and the layers beneath a word.
- On Letting AI Do the Writing: Read why a human still needs to practice the hard part of writing clearly.