My new episode on Lenny's Podcast

Communication frameworks and tactics used by top 1% performers to improve your clarity, influence, and impact.

Apr 09, 2025

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

Read time: 6 minutes

Today’s newsletter is sponsored by Balsamiq. Docs don’t sell your vision. Jumping straight to high-fidelity slows teams down. Balsamiq helps founders and PMs sketch and validate ideas fast—before pixels, code, or rework get in the way. No fluff. No bottlenecks. No wasted time. Try Balsamiq free for 30 days.

I’m excited that my episode on Lenny’s Podcast just dropped.

First, I'm a huge fan of Lenny. He was an early investor in my company, Maven, and he was one of the first four instructors (!) that my cofounder and I pitched. Securing Lenny felt like such a win. This feels like a lifetime ago, but since then, I’ve continued to be inspired by what he’s building and the rigor of his approach.

I was especially honored to come onto the show as a second-time guest. The first time I appeared on his podcast was in August 2022. Today I’m sharing our latest conversation for April 2025—back with even more principles to apply to your daily work.

**Listen now: YouTube / Apple / Spotify**

Key takeaways

Here are takeaways from Lenny’s post sharing our podcast. I’ve linked to specific articles that dive deeper into almost each of these topics for further reading:

Communication is the highest-leverage career skill: If you’re not getting the reaction you want, focus on improving how you communicate rather than blaming others for not understanding.
The “sales, then logistics” framework: Always sell people on why something matters before diving into how to do it. Even executives who seem rushed need 30 to 60 seconds of context for why this matters now.
Being concise is about density of insight, not brevity: “Being concise is not about absolute word count. It’s about economy of words and density of the insight.” The bottleneck to being concise is often unclear thinking.
Use “signposting” to guide your audience: Words like “for example,” “because,” “as a next step,” and “first, second, third” help readers navigate your ideas without excessive formatting.
The MOO (Most Obvious Objection): Before sharing an idea, spend just a few seconds anticipating the most obvious objections. This simple practice dramatically improves your communication effectiveness.
Speak with accurate confidence: Don’t overstate hypotheses as facts or understate strong recommendations. Match your conviction level to the evidence available.
Give feedback using “strategy, not self-expression”: Focus on motivating behavior change rather than venting your frustrations. “Trim 90% of what you initially want to say and keep only the 10% that will make the person want to change.”
Managing up is about sharing your point of view: Don’t just ask your manager what to do. Present your recommendation with supporting evidence, which reduces their cognitive load and demonstrates your strategic thinking.
The CEDAF delegation framework:
Comprehension: Ensure they understand what needs to be done
Excitement: Make the task meaningful and motivating
De-risk: Anticipate and address potential issues
Align: Confirm mutual understanding
Feedback: Create the shortest possible feedback loop
Create a “swipe file”: Collect examples of effective communication that you can reference later. Even the act of noting these examples trains you to recognize effective patterns.
Small communication improvements compound: “These might seem minor, but (a) it compounds, and (b) all the ‘big things,’ everyone else is already doing. So there’s not a lot of alpha in that.”
Invest time up front: Spending a few extra minutes crafting clear communications saves hours of back-and-forth clarification later. “A little bit more up-front investment reaps a lot of benefits down the line.”

Listener takeaways

I always love hearing what readers/listeners find most helpful, especially because people can listen to the same episode but pick up on different things that apply most to their situation at the moment.

On LinkedIn, a bunch of you have listened to the episode and shared your biggest takeaways:

Meg Porter, a fractional VP of Product, said:

“THIS. Hypotheses are hypotheses. I believe X because of Y is another way to show that this is an objective hypothesis, because of *reasons* — it builds trust and credibility in teams, in c-suite, in investor relations.”

Matt Schaeffer, Marketing Manager at EV Connect, said:

This podcast episode from Lenny Rachitsky featuring Wes Kao has some strong examples of how to make ourselves and our companies stronger through better communication. I took these away for myself. What were your takeaways?
1. Everything needs to start with empathy - put myself in my audience’s shoes.
2. Relate my project to more global business goals (i.e. if the area of my idea hasn’t been prioritized, maybe it’s the wrong time to pitch it)
3. Make the ask of the audience very clear
4. Frame topics for people (not everyone is as familiar with the topic as I am!)
5. Re-read comms to ensure they’re clear and concise (remove 10 words) and take a couple minutes prior to each meeting I’m leading to make sure I’m clear on what I’ll say.

From Grace Gao, Head of Business Development at Sephora:

Even though I 𝑘𝑛𝑒𝑤 good communication was important, I often found myself slipping back into speaking off the cuff — unprepared and unaware of how my words were actually landing.
Communication should be intentional, strategic and practiced…
Then I listened to Wes Kao on Lenny Rachitsky's Podcast, where she shared actionable advice for upgrading the way we speak and write. Three tips really stood out, and after applying them for just a few days, I saw a noticeable shift:
✅ I felt more confident
✅ I spoke with greater clarity
✅ I aligned stakeholders more easily
Here are the 3 tips I used:
𝐓𝐢𝐩 𝟏: 𝐒𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐬
Before diving into the how of a project, secure the audience’s buy-in by explaining the why.
Instead of saying “Let’s do X, then do Y … ”, start by explaining
“We are doing this because …”
“This matters because ….”
“Here’s the support I’m looking for from you …”
Why? A mini sales pitch gets people aligned and engaged. Setting expectation on action needed inspires collaboration.
𝐓𝐢𝐩 𝟐: 𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐜𝐢𝐬𝐞
I used to think conciseness was a personal style or a sign of intelligence.
Wes reframed this for me: 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑐𝑖𝑠𝑒𝑛𝑒𝑠𝑠 𝑖𝑠 𝑎 𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑢𝑙𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑐𝑙𝑎𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑦.
Now, before any meeting, I take a few minutes to jot down the answers to:
✅ What do I want to achieve from this conversation?
✅ What supporting points will I bring?
✅ Why would the other person care or help?
This simple exercise boosted my confidence and sense of ownership in every interaction.
𝐓𝐢𝐩 𝟑: 𝐎𝐛𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐞
Treat communication like a sport.
Use a feedback loop to assess whether your words are having the intended impact. Level up by doubling down on what works and adjusting what doesn’t.
With this mindset, I started noticing small habits that limit my effectiveness. For example, speaking too fast when I’m excited, which blurs my message. Simply slowing down has improved how others engage with me.

Sylvia Carr, founder at Parse, said:

Wes Kao's practices for successful delegation are super smart, and they are even more fascinating when you think about applying it to AI--and soon, AI agents.
She shared the framework on Lenny Rachitsky's podcast this week:
Comprehension, Excitement, De-risk, Align, and Feedback (CEDAF)
It’s a super practical mental model:
(C) Comprehension: Does the person (or AI) have everything they need to understand the task? This includes tools, context, and clarity on the desired outcome.
(E) Excitement: Are you framing the task in a way that makes it exciting or meaningful? With people, connect it to their goals... With AI, giving some feeling like, “This is critical for my job!”, can make a big difference in response quality.
(D) De-Risk: The idea is to anticipate and address potential blockers or risks upfront before they derail the task. For example, if there’s a chance someone (or the AI) might misunderstand the scope or spend too much time on the wrong thing, you'd proactively clarify or set guardrails.
(A) Align: Confirm mutual understanding before moving forward. If you, like me, love The Pitt 🚑, you can see how the ER teams running a code do this all the time. Those stakes are way higher, so it's very doable. "Got it?"
(F) Feedback: How can you create the shortest feedback loop possible? Check in early and often to course-correct before too much time is spent going in the wrong direction.
It’s a cool way to think about the future of work, when we'll be delegating not just to people, but to AI agents, and you can see how these soft skills are quite transferrable.

Connect with Wes

Are you new to the newsletter? Subscribe for free
Follow me on LinkedIn for more insights
Learn more about 1:1 coaching to improve your executive presence
✨ The May 2025 cohort is now 95% full, and is the last chance to take the course this spring. Improve your ability to sell your ideas, manage up, gain buy-in, and increase your impact in an intensive 2-day workshop. Save your spot here: Executive Communication & Influence for Senior ICs and Managers

Wes Kao's Newsletter

Discussion about this post