Write Clearly and Simply Like the Best Leaders Do

People act on a memo when they can find the decision, the owner and the deadline in one read. Most workplace writing makes them dig for all three.

The usual draft opens with background, hedges every claim and leaves the ask somewhere on page two. Four readers come back with four different questions, a second meeting gets booked to explain the first document, and the approval slips a week.

This course works on the documents you actually send: the update, the recommendation, the memo that needs a yes. You name the job a document does, put the decision in its first line, rewrite foggy sentences as one plain sentence each, and order the case the way a careful reader thinks. Then you cut the words that only protect you, lay out a trade-off honestly, and finish with owners, dates and the risk that remains.

You walk away with one real memo rewritten and sent, a five-point check you run before anything goes out, and a prompt that turns an AI assistant into a first reader for your drafts.

Who it's for

Managers and team leads: write updates and recommendations that get a decision in one read.

Founders and operators: send memos and proposals where the ask and the trade-off cannot be misread.

Senior individual contributors: turn dense technical thinking into plain writing that moves stakeholders to act.