One executive suggests a discipline — putting down first what you want the reader to do, next the three most important things the reader needs to understand to take that action, then starting to write. When you’re done, he suggests asking

The ability to speak continuously with confidence is a talent of sorts. But, over the course of my working life, I found that the colleagues who had the most impact on meetings, and whose careers advanced with the greatest velocity, were those who restricted themselves to fewer and better statements; more concise and memorable observations; more