Notes — Wes Kao on Executive Communication, MOO, and the CEDAF Delegation Framework
Four questions [Adler frame]
Q1 — What is it about? A practical taxonomy of professional communication failures, each named and addressed with a concrete countermeasure. The episode is structured as a catalogue of Wes Kao’s frameworks for executive communication and delegation.
Q2 — How is it argued? Practitioner-based. Wes runs a course on executive communication and draws on observations from clients and her own career. The frameworks are taxonomic (naming failure modes) and prescriptive (naming the fix). No empirical validation cited; the argument rests on face validity and practitioner resonance.
Q3 — Is it true? The core principle — that most communication failures are the sender’s problem, not the receiver’s — is well-supported and often resisted. Sales-before-logistics is a real and common failure mode; the correction is simple and effective. MOO (Most Obvious Objection) is a lightweight but valuable mental filter. CEDAF is more comprehensive as a delegation checklist; the “shorten the feedback loop as much as possible” principle has strong grounding in management research on delegation failures.
Q4 — What of it? These frameworks are actionable individually. The highest leverage starting point, per Wes: MOO + framing conversations upfront (30 seconds of context before every meeting). CEDAF is most useful for delegating multi-day tasks to people newer to an area.
Glossary
Sales then logistics — the principle that buy-in (selling the why) must precede operational detail (the how). Reversing the order produces no response. The sales portion can be as brief as 30 seconds.
Concise ≠ brief — concision is economy of words and density of insight, not absolute word count. The bottleneck is knowing your main point before you start speaking or writing.
MOO — Most Obvious Objection. The single most predictable objection to any communication. Identifying it before you communicate and addressing it proactively or framing around it reduces being caught off-guard.
Right confidence level — stating a claim at the certainty you actually hold it. Two failure modes: overconfidence (hypothesis stated as fact) and underconfidence (hedging that strips force from valid recommendations).
Single-minded martyr — a communicator so focused on their recommendation that they fail to connect it to their audience’s priorities, then attribute the lack of buy-in to personal antipathy.
Strategy not self-expression — Wes’s framework for giving feedback: trim everything that is venting or self-expression; keep only what will motivate a specific behaviour change.
CEDAF — Comprehension, Excitement, De-risk, Align, Feedback. A five-check delegation framework for ensuring a task is set up for success before the delegated person begins.
Signposting — using specific words (“for example,” “because,” “as a next step,” “first/second/third”) to signal structure and guide the reader’s attention without relying on rich text formatting.
Blast radius — Wes’s term for the downstream cost of a poorly written message. A confusing Slack message to 15 people generates 15 individual moments of confusion and an unpredictable thread of back-and-forth.
Swipe file — a personal collection of well-crafted phrases, sentences, or communications worth borrowing from. Wes keeps hers in Apple Notes under “Smart Things People Have Said.”
MOO in depth [§ Most Obvious Objection]
MOO is simple enough to become muscle memory. Before every communication, ask: what is the most obvious objection the recipient is likely to have? This is not a full counterargument analysis — just the single most predictable pushback.
Two uses:
- Proactive address: mention the objection yourself and explain why it is not a blocker. Removes the need for the recipient to raise it.
- Framing: structure the communication to reduce the likelihood the objection arises in the first place.
The effect is empathy made operational: you are forced to take the audience’s perspective for at least two minutes before communicating. This is “a really tactical concrete way” to do what everyone says they do (consider their audience) but rarely does in practice.
CEDAF in depth [§ Delegation framework]
C — Comprehension. Does this person have everything required to understand the task? Logins, background documents, examples of the end result, scope boundaries. The most common delegation failure: assuming shared context that does not exist.
E — Excitement. Have you explained why this task matters? Not every task is intrinsically motivating, but connecting it to the project’s goal or the company’s priorities increases the likelihood the person brings genuine effort. Wes: “There are a lot of tasks that aren’t inherently that exciting, but by explaining the why behind this, that makes people more likely to understand and be excited.”
D — De-risk. Have you named the most obvious failure mode upfront? “I wouldn’t want you to spend three hours building the full spreadsheet if we decide we don’t need it — do 10 rows first.” Voicing the risk is enough; it removes it from the realm of silent assumptions.
A — Align. Have you given the person a chance to ask questions before they start? Wrap-up monologues do not produce alignment; alignment requires the other person to speak. “What parts are you a bit confused on?” reveals assumptions you forgot to make explicit.
F — Feedback. How short can the feedback loop be? The default is “come back when done.” The better default is a check-in within the first hour, ideally within the current conversation (“what are you going to do first?”). Shortening the feedback loop is the single most reliable way to avoid a week of work going in the wrong direction.