A note on the principle of golden pagoda

The Golden Pagoda Principle is a book published by Democracy and Construction Press in 2002, written by Barbara? Minto, translated by Wang Dezhong and Zhang Xun. The following are my notes on the principle of the golden pagoda. Let's have a look!

Gold and pyramid principles: Logic of Thinking, Expressing and Solving Problems

Author: Barbara? Minto translator: Wang er

Press: Nanhai Press: August 1, 20 1.

The classic book "The Golden Pagoda Principle" recommended by this reading club is a classic training material of McKinsey for 40 years. The golden pagoda principle improves the logical ability of thinking, expressing and solving problems.

The author of this book is barbara minto of the United States, and the translators are Teacher Wang Er and Teacher gaoyu.

About the author, the first female consultant who graduated from Harvard University and McKinsey Company, has taught the principle of golden pyramid for 40 years, helping people from all walks of life such as government, enterprises and universities to write business articles, complex reports and presentations. He has taught the golden pyramid principle to many enterprises in the United States, Europe and Asia, as well as Harvard University and Stanford University. The golden pyramid principle has been popular for more than 40 years, translated into many languages and reprinted many times, ranking among the best sellers in various countries all the year round.

At home, major enterprises are also learning in all directions. One of the main reasons for this phenomenon is that our education omits thinking training and fails to cultivate everyone's logical thinking during school.

The golden pyramid principle: it is a kind of logical thinking, expression and standardized action with prominent focus, clear logic and clear priorities.

The basic structure of the golden pyramid principle: the central idea is clear, the conclusion is the first, the above is unified, the rules are grouped, the logic is progressive, the importance is the first, the details are the first, the conclusion is the first, the result is the first, and the process is the second.

What problems can the golden pyramid principle help you solve?

At the level of thinking: think with the whole brain, improve the ability of structured thinking, and think completely, accurately and quickly.

In terms of text expression and official document writing, we can tap readers' concerns, interests, needs and interests, and build a logical framework with pyramids. Classification and grouping are focused and logical, which makes people understand, listen and remember, shortens writing time and reduces revision times.

Oral expression: Speaking, speaking and speaking can use the basic principles of the pyramid to answer the four most commonly used questions of the audience: What is it? Why? How? OK or not? The expression is focused, clear and concise, so that the audience can understand and remember if they are interested.

In your management of subordinates: use the golden pyramid principle to assign tasks, be thoughtful, comprehensive and rigorous, and there can be no overlap or omission.

Training and developing courses and lectures: able to quickly build a framework structure and organize materials, with clear logic and easy to understand.

Don't think too complicated about the principle of the golden pyramid. From the visualization of the pyramid, we can see that it has a spire and a tower foundation. We must have arguments and sufficient arguments. Building this framework, like a pyramid, is a right pyramid. Everyone can master it as long as they think and study hard. Where is the difficulty? Apply it in the process of practice, spend energy and time practicing and turn it into a habit of thinking.

The framework of this book is divided into four chapters:

The first article: the logic of expression

The second part: the logic of thinking.

The third part: the logic of solving problems.

Chapter four: the logic of argument.

In fact, it starts with four applications.

Expression logic: tell us what pyramid structure is, what kinds of relationships it has, how to build a pyramid, including the specific writing of the conventional preface, and the difference between deductive reasoning and inductive reasoning.

Thinking logic: relatively simple, focusing on the application of logic in time, structure and degree order, and summarizing various ideas. It talks about how to avoid using thoughtless sentences, how to explain the results and goals of actions and the commonness between conclusions.

Problem-solving logic: the focus is on defining problems and structural analysis. In the last issue, we shared McKinsey's problem analysis and solution skills, so I won't discuss them here.

Show affection. Logic: Everyone is very useful when doing PPT in daily life, or when making a report. It is about how to present pyramids in writing, how to use pyramids in PPT presentation to improve your influence, and how to present pyramids between lines in daily writing. These are actually three major applications.

Regarding the pyramids, the translator of this book, Mr. Wang Er, is also the ace teacher who spreads the principle of the golden pyramid in China at present. In the preface, Mr. Wang Er said: Think clearly, speak clearly, know what to say and how to say it. This is what we hope to achieve.

It can be said that this book is a practical treasure to train thinking and make expression logical.

This book is the textbook of McKinsey's 40-year classic training. If you just read books, the above and below are relatively simple, because there are more exercises in the course. In the process of explanation, the key point is to tell you some basic concepts and principles, and to train in your daily work.

Chapter one: the logic of expression

Written expression: common plans, summaries, plans, reports, explanations and plans.

Oral expression: speech, training, report, debriefing, presentation and preaching.

The core of the golden pyramid principle: ensuring clear logic, trying to figure out psychology, catering to needs, improving thinking ability and influencing structural system thinking.

Logical clarity: the conclusion comes first, and it is presented in a logical way through classification and grouping;

Try to figure out the psychology and cater to the demands: take the audience as the center, understand the leadership intention, pay attention to the needs and do what you like.

Improve the influence of thinking: when you speak, you have a clear point of view, outstanding point of view, clear logic and clear priorities.

First important, then secondary, first overall, then details, first summary, then concrete, first argument, then argument, first conclusion, then cause, first result, then process.

Four principles of logical use:

Principle 1: conclusion comes first.

Principle 2: unify the above principles.

Principle 3: Classification and grouping principle

Principle 4: Logical progressive principle

Conclusion 1: In other words, there is only one central idea to be put at the forefront.

Unified up and down: refers to the summary supported by up and down, which is a father-son relationship.

Classification and grouping: it is to classify and group ideas that have something in common. They are brothers.

Logical progression: It refers to arranging organizational materials, deductive reasoning and inductive reasoning in logical order, and making logical progression from time order, spatial order order and importance order.

When expressing, adjust the order, weight, argument and style according to the needs of the audience. First, you should pay attention to the audience's concerns, the proportion of the overall situation and details, the relationship between your arguments and arguments, including conclusions and reasons, whether they can be supported, the results and process, and what the audience and his interests are, and then express them.

Three ways to understand the audience:

1, observe, understand through careful observation,

2, preliminary investigation, with your preliminary investigation, know what everyone is more concerned about.

3. Empathy: As an audience, put yourself in your shoes and see how you understand the needs of customers or the needs of the audience.

Generally speaking, it is to cater to the audience first and then impress the audience. Satisfy the audience and solve their problems.

How to do what you want to do:

1, adjust the order

Step 2 adjust the weight

Step 3 adjust the argument

Step 4 adjust your style

According to the needs of the audience, adjust the word order, weight, argument and style to make your expression more structured and influential.

Regarding the unique viewpoint and complete structure, the TOPS rule is mentioned:

1, clear goal: point to the needs of the audience, the focus should be clear.

2. Complete content: clear structure.

3, full of power: power can be touched.

4. Well-founded: well-founded, with sufficient evidence.

What I just said is the overall structure of the pyramid. Intuitively, the internal structure of the pyramid is horizontal and vertical. Horizontal and vertical should also belong to the same category, and there should be no conflict and duplication between them. This is not appropriate either. The father-son relationship is vertical, and the brotherly relationship is horizontal.

Vertical: it means top-down expression and bottom-up thinking.

Bottom-up: list all the points you want to express, find out the logical relationship between the points and draw a conclusion. This is a bottom-up approach.

Top-down: the steps to build a pyramid, presenting the theme, questions, background, conflicts and answers.

Top-down expression: it is to answer the audience's questions step by step.

Structured thinking is first horizontal and then vertical, first horizontal and then vertical. You can't stand horizontally for a while, which will confuse the audience and make them confused.

For example, what's your theme? What chapter is it? What is your paragraph? There are three levels: one, two, three, and then sentences and sentence patterns.

Spin law: current situation, problems, influences and benefits; Tap demand and highlight interest.

FABE law: function, advantage, benefit and proof. Highlight advantages and gain benefits.

Logical tree: a common solution to avoid forgetting words or confusing interference. For example, competitive analysis, what are your strengths and weaknesses?

There are also measures, divided into internal and external, internal: mechanism and process; External: substations and customers; Customer: divided into high-end and low-end; Wait, expand layer by layer, similar to MECE's law;

The form of logical tree is level 1, level 2 and level 3, namely 123, which is progressive from root \ trunk \ branch \ branch.

Bottom-up thinking generally has three steps to build a structure:

One is to list the main points, the other is to find out the relationship, and the third is to draw a conclusion.

To list the main points is to list all the main points and elements, without repeating or omitting our MECE law;

To understand the relationship, we must understand the logical relationship between the main points;

Classification and grouping, and finally draw a conclusion.

Horizontal: deduction, induction and reasoning.

There are four logical sequences:

Deductive order: major premise, minor premise and conclusion.

Time sequence: first, second and third

Structural order: Boston, new york and Washington.

Degree order: most important, less important, and so on.

Another method will be used when telling stories, telling cases and reporting, that is, SCQA structural mode.

Chapter III: Problem Analysis and Solution

Define problems, analyze problems, define goals, make plans, optimize sequencing, and act efficiently.

Emphasizing this MECE rule means not repeating or omitting, especially when analyzing problems. Defining and analyzing problems is very extensive. With the golden pyramid principle, everything on the surface can be listed, and then the problems can be confirmed one by one. Starting with information and materials, design and diagnose the framework step by step, find out the causal relationship between them, and then we can diagnose the main problems of this problem clearly.

Chapter four: the logic of argument.

I can help you make PPT presentations and make you more brilliant.

The five-step process of making PPT and the selection of charts.

First, determine the goal.

Second, the logic of thought.

Third, organizational materials.

Fourth, the system layout

Fifth, check the optimization.

PPT is actually very easy to do. I suggest that you not only pay attention to the beautification of this page, but more importantly, its content, content is king, logical structure, ideas and so on.

There are actually five basic forms of charts, namely pie chart, bar chart, column chart, line chart and scatter chart.

Simple summary:

What is the golden pyramid principle?

Clear logic, clear priorities. He has a central argument, a sub-argument, and a problem under the sub-argument. Everything can be reduced to a central argument. The central argument can be supported by 3-7 arguments and these arguments can also be supported by 3-7 arguments. The pyramid-shaped structure is called the golden pyramid principle.

What are the four logical orders of organization?

Deductive order: major premise, minor premise and conclusion

Time sequence: past, present and future

Structural order: Beijing, Hangzhou, Xinjiang, China, foreign countries.

Degree order: order of importance, most important, second important, and so on.

What is the highest principle of the central idea?

Some let go, throughout, landing, well-founded.

What is the MECE rule?

Simply put, they are independent and tired of each other.

What is the basic structure of SCQA?

The structure and order of background, conflict, problem and solution can be changed to create different styles.

Four basic structures: