My top 9 articles to raise the bar for yourself and your team

Plus, a holiday break for my newsletter and a new cohort announcement

👋 Hey, it’s Wes. Welcome to my weekly newsletter on managing up, executive communication, and standing out as a higher performer. For more, check out my intensive course on Executive Communication & Influence.

Read time: 3 minutes

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First, a few announcements:

1. I’ll be taking a 3-week break from my newsletter for the holidays.

I’m hosting Christmas for the first time, and it’s been an action-packed year. I’ll be taking the holidays to spend time with family, reflect on what I want to do more/less of, and set my intentions for 2025. I’m quite looking forward to a slower pace in the next few weeks.

I hope you have a wonderful holiday, and I’ll be back in your inbox on Wednesday, January 8.

2. Announcing: New April 2025 course cohort

The February 2025 cohort of my executive communication course is now full!

It filled up sooner than expected, so I’ve opened a new cohort for April 2025. The course dates are Thursday, April 10 and Friday, April 11.

In 2024, I ran three sold-out cohorts in September, October, and December. I’ve been blown away by the quality of operators and leaders joining the course.

So far, students are from companies like Uber, TikTok, Grammarly, Workday, CVS, Google, Wealthsimple, New York Times, Adobe, Pinterest, Shopify, Expedia, Sephora, Twilio, Spotify, GitHub, Dell, Salesforce, Capital One, National Geographic, Apple, Cisco, Grammarly, Zillow, PayPal, Netflix, Meta, Square, Figma, etc.

The course is full of vibrant, ambitious, thoughtful builders who want to increase their impact. If you’ve been wanting to invest in yourself and level up in this area, I hope you’ll join us. See the course details.

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Since I won’t be seeing you for a few weeks, I’ll share some of my popular posts for you to binge-read:

✨ Raise the bar for yourself and your team

1. Are your standards too low? In defense of raising the bar - For every team that says “this is as good as it’s going to get,” there’s a doppelgänger team out there who refuses to settle. They are pushing & they will eat your lunch—unless you raise your bar.

2. Turning a yellow spot into the sun - This is the #1 trait I look for when hiring high performers. Here's why you should aim to turn a little into a lot.

3. Rigorous thinking: No lazy thinking - The best managers teach their team how to think strategically. Here's how to build a culture of good decision-making and thoughtful debate.

✨ Communicate more clearly and concisely

4. Start right before you get eaten by the bear - A lot of stories, presentations, and pitches take too long to get to the point. Here’s how to avoid backstory scope creep.

5. How to be more concise - The truth about why it’s so hard to be concise, and 9 tactics I use to tighten my communication.

6. How I give the right amount of context (in any situation) - Most people suck at managing up. They waste their stakeholders’ time with too much (or too little) information. Here’s how to do better.

✨ Improve your judgment

7. The unspoken skill of finesse - What finesse looks like, why it matters, and how to develop it for yourself and your team.

8. Question behind the question - Your ability to answer questions is a competitive advantage. Here’s how to uncover the deeper underlying question.

9. How to share your point of view (even if you’re afraid of being wrong) - Sharing your point of view is one of the best ways to add value. So why do so many high performers hold back? Here's how to overcome this mental block so you can speak up more confidently.

Which of these are you most excited to read? Hit reply because I’d love to hear from you.

Thanks for being here, as always. I’ll see you in 2025.

Wes

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