(I’m hitting sending on this newsletter to you from Chicago!)

It was a whirlwind of a week over here. On Monday I flew from London to Lisbon for Meltwater annual Global Leadership Summit.

Two days of leadership sessions to get the latest updates on our product roadmap and to connect with colleagues from around the world to align on key initiatives. DDC was much talked about!

Here’s your lesson for this week, a key moment that stood out, and an upcoming free opportunity for you to develop your strategic skills for free!

Devin spent 12 years in SaaS sales and marketing — including scaling content at Gong from 20 to 220 million in ARR. He's been in rooms with CEOs, in Slack threads with ICs, and in cross-functional meetings where nobody leaves aligned. And he shared something that stopped me.

He used to dread Monday mornings. Not because of the work — because of the communicating about the work.

9am: C-suite update. 9:30: team meeting. 10am: cross-functional sync.

Three audiences. Three altitudes. And he was giving all of them the same message.

It wasn't working. His CEO would ask, "How does this connect to the big picture?" His peers would ask, "Who owns this?" And his best IC — someone he described as a high performer — would Slack him right after a meeting he thought he'd crushed:

"That was great, Devin. But… what do I actually do this week?"

Sound familiar?

He called it the Altitude Framework. And it's dead simple.

Executives want vision. Where have we been? Where are we now? Where are we going? One sentence each. That's it. They don't want your action plan. They want to know you have one.

Managers want milestones. What's due, who owns it, and what's blocked? They're coordinators — give them what they need to coordinate.

ICs want action items. What do you need me to do, and by when? Be specific. Be direct. Don't inspire them and then forget to land the plane.

One message. Split three ways.

The next time you're about to send an update, a report, or a recommendation — pause. Ask yourself: what's the altitude of the person I'm talking to? And what do they actually need from me right now?

That question alone will change how your work lands.

→ Devin posts a few times a week on LinkedIn and writes a weekly newsletter. Worth a follow if you're trying to sharpen how you communicate internally.

I was on a call last week with a global pharmaceutical company.

Smart team. Senior people. They have reputation data, media monitoring, a measurement and insights function — the whole setup.

We were walking through the DDC framework. North Star, external audiences, star players, contribution. The usual progression.

And then one of their leaders said something that stopped the room:

"I don't know what our outcomes are."

She paused. Then she kept going.

"I don't know if that's pessimistic… but I just don't think we know what we're actually trying to move."

Here's the thing.

That wasn't a failure. That was the breakthrough.

Because most teams never say it out loud. They keep producing reports. They keep tracking share of voice. They keep building dashboards that nobody asks for — because admitting "I don't actually know what business outcome I'm connected to" feels like admitting defeat.

It's not defeat. It's the starting line.

What happened next proved it.

Another leader on the call jumped in with a story. She'd spent two months building evidence-driven talking points for a major policy initiative in Europe. Every single provision she recommended made it into the final legislation.

Every. Single. One.

And her reaction wasn't celebration. It was frustration.

"I can't say I did that. Maybe it was going to happen anyway. I have no way of knowing."

She's right. She can't prove attribution.

But here's what I told her: Do you really think Gen sold newspapers?

(If you've been reading this newsletter, you know Gen. If not — she's the News Corp Australia PR leader who reversed a sales decline by changing who appeared on breakfast radio. She didn't ring the cash register. But she changed the perception that changed the behavior that changed the number.)

Attribution is a mirage. Every team chases it, nobody catches it, and it's the wrong pursuit anyway.

The question isn't: Did YOU cause this?

The question is: Did you help us win the game?

Business is a team sport. The salesperson can't close without the brand. The brand can't land without the story. The story can't travel without the strategy. And the strategy can't work without someone who understands which audience to move, and what perception needs to shift.

That's your contribution. And it starts the moment you're honest enough to say: I don't know what our outcomes are — yet.

Your free opportunity to develop your skills this week: listen to the latest episode of Earning Your Seat.

We sat down with Dr. Carmen Simon — cognitive neuroscientist, Stanford instructor, and Chief Science Officer at Enhancive — and she showed us the science behind why your reports, your presentations, and your campaign briefs get forgotten.

Not because they're bad. Because of how the brain works.

Carmen doesn't do surveys. She straps electrodes to people's scalps, sensors on their skin, and eye trackers on their faces. Then she watches what actually happens in the brain when someone receives a message.

If you've ever wondered why you spend hours on a report and nobody acts on it — this episode will change how you think about every communication you design. Whether it's a board update, a media brief, a campaign strategy, or even a Slack message to your CEO.

And here's what her research keeps showing:

After 48 hours, people forget 90% of what you told them.

That's not a guess. That's the data.

But the 10% that survives? That part sticks. People act on it. They make decisions based on it. They repeat it to colleagues.

The tragedy isn't the 90%. The tragedy is that most of us leave that 10% to chance.

Carmen calls it "Control Your 10%." And it might be the most important thing I've heard all year.

Think about your last report to the C-suite. Your last campaign brief. Your last all-hands update. If you asked the room 48 hours later what they remember — would they all say the same thing? Or would one person remember the chart, another remember the anecdote, and a third remember… your shirt?

If you're not deliberate about the 10%, the audience decides for you. And they won't coordinate.

So how do you control it?

Clarify it. Your 10% message has to be a specific phrase. Not a theme. Not a vibe. Carmen's example for a construction client: "Control cost with flexibility and foresight." Period. Everything else supports that.

Repeat it. Exact same words. Every time. Carmen doesn't say "manage your 10%" one slide and "be careful with the 10%" the next. It's the same phrase, said the same way. Because in competitive environments — and comms is always competitive — you can't afford the gist. You need verbatim memory.

Make it portable. The best messages travel. "Houston, we have a problem" works in finance, in the newsroom, in a crisis meeting. If your 10% message can only live in one context, it won't spread.

Here's the question for you this week: What's your 10%?

Not for your whole career. Just for the next thing you present. The next report. The next campaign. Can you write it in one sentence? Can you say it the same way five times without flinching?

If you can, you're not just communicating. You're controlling what people remember. And that's how you move them.

→ Listen to the full episode — Earning Your Seat with Dr. Carmen Simon drops Monday. We go deep on repetition, emotion, metaphor, and why the brain synchronizes better with complexity than simplicity. LISTEN NOW

If you want to join us for the Happy Hour in Chicago, or for the Spy Museum in NYC, just hit reply and send me a quick note.

To join the masterclasses, you can sign up and register here.

Other events on our calendar:

→ Amsterdam (March 5) · Washington DC (March 9) · Atlanta / PRSA Higher Ed (March 10) · NYC / AMEC AI Day (March 11) · Customer Advisory Board (March) · Sydney Summit on Tour (May 21)

It's a hectic schedule. But I'm excited to get this in front of so many audiences — because I know I'll come back with amazing lessons and moments to share with you all, in the hope of making you better at your craft.

→ Join us live — The DDC Run Club meets every Thursday. Free, virtual, interactive. 8am LA / 11am NYC / 4pm London. 250+ communicators registered, learning together every week. REGISTER FOR FREE

→ Know someone who needs to hear this? Forward this email. The best thing you can do for a colleague stuck in the measurement trap is show them there's a way out.

→ What outcome are you struggling to connect to? Reply to this email. I read everything.

See you Thursday at Run Club.

Dino

(I’m off to spend the day with family in Chicago and recharge the batteries before another action packed week!)