format-as-call-prep

name

format-as-call-prep

description

Generates a natural call preparation document — talking points, opening hook, key messages, objection responses, and closing ask — adapted to both the manager's archetype and the user's own communication persona. Not a script: a structured guide that sounds like you. Covers status calls, idea pitches, crisis management, and general check-ins. Use when the user says "I have a call with my manager", "help me pitch this idea", "I need talking points", "prepare me for this conversation", or "what do I say on this call".

format-as-call-prep

Goal

Produce a call preparation guide that feels natural to deliver — not a script to read, but structured talking points calibrated to who you are and who you're talking to.

Sound like yourself. Sound prepared. Sound like it just came to you.

How to use

Step 1 — Load inputs

1. The markdown report (current work context)
2. Manager archetype (from config.yml)
3. User persona (from config.yml — critical for this skill):
   • style: assertive / diplomatic / data-driven / storyteller / minimalist
   • tone: confident / humble / collaborative / direct
   • strengths: list of what the user is good at
   • role: their job title/context
4. Call mode — ask if not specified:
   • status_update — regular check-in, weekly review
   • pitch — selling an idea, proposing a change, getting buy-in
   • bad_news — something went wrong, delay, blocker, missed expectation
   • escalation — you need something from them urgently
   • feedback — you want to give or request feedback
5. History (.useless-report/history/) — what was outstanding from last time

Step 2 — Build the call structure

Adapt structure to call mode:

status_update:

Opening (30s) → 3 key points (2min each) → What I need (30s) → Close

pitch:

Hook / why now (30s) → The problem (1min) → My proposal (2min) →
Why it works (1min) → What I need from you (30s) → Handle objections

bad_news:

Lead with the solution, not the problem (15s) → What happened (1min) →
What we're doing about it (2min) → What I need (30s) → Timeline

escalation:

The ask first (15s) → Why it's urgent (1min) → What happens if not resolved (30s) →
Specific action requested (30s)

feedback:

Positive framing → Specific observation → Impact → Request or suggestion

Step 3 — Apply user persona

The same talking points sound different depending on who's delivering them. Adapt language to the user's style:

assertive — short declarative sentences, numbers upfront, no hedging

"We shipped X. It works. Here's the data." ← not → "I think we did pretty well with X..."

diplomatic — acknowledge context, frame contributions collectively, soften asks

"The team made strong progress on X, and we'd benefit from your input on Y."

data-driven — lead with metrics, reference specifics, use percentages and dates

"Coverage is at 87%. Latency dropped 40ms. Three blockers resolved in 4 days."

storyteller — narrative arc, before/after, human context

"Last week we were stuck on X. We tried two approaches. Here's what worked and why."

minimalist — fewest words possible, no filler, headers only if needed

"Done: X, Y, Z. Blocker: A. Need: decision on B by Friday."

Step 4 — Adapt to manager archetype

Same content, different framing per archetype:

• control_oriented: give them the detail first, then the summary. Offer alternatives.
• risk_sensitive: lead with what's safe, then address risks head-on before they ask.
• process_heavy: reference the ticket, the standup, the process. Name the system.
• stakeholder_oriented: frame everything as narrative. "The story here is…"
• low_context: shorter. Simpler. Assume nothing. Offer to send a recap after.
• volatile_priority: be ready to pivot. Hold key points loosely. Confirm priorities first.
• deadline_reactive: dates before details. "Done by X" before "how".
• quality_maximalist: address edge cases unprompted. Show you've thought it through.
• ambiguity_tolerant: bring direction. They want you to propose, not ask.
• synchronous_first: warm open, conversational, leave space for them to talk.

Step 5 — Generate the document

Output structure:

━━━ CALL PREP — [Manager name] · [Call mode] · [Date] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

⏱ BEFORE YOU DIAL
  □ Open the report tab (you don't need to read it — just have it)
  □ One number to remember: [single most important metric]
  □ Your ask in one sentence: [what you need from this call]

━━━ OPENING (30 seconds) ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Opening hook adapted to user style + call mode]

Example: "Quick one — three things, then I'll need 30 seconds from you."
or: "Good news first: [win]. Then I want to flag one thing."

━━━ KEY POINTS (say these, in this order) ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

① [First point — adapted to archetype]
   → [Supporting detail / number]
   → [Why it matters to them specifically]

② [Second point]
   → [Supporting detail]
   → [Implication]

③ [Third point — often the most important or sensitive]
   → [Supporting detail]
   → [What you need from them, if anything]

━━━ YOUR ASK ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Be specific. One ask per call.

[Exact phrasing of your ask, in your style]

Example (assertive): "I need a decision on X by tomorrow EOD."
Example (diplomatic): "It would really help us move faster if you could weigh in on X before our next standup."

━━━ IF THEY PUSH BACK ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Likely objection 1]: "[How to respond — from data in the report]"
[Likely objection 2]: "[How to respond]"
⚠️ [Danger topic — likely to derail]: "[Strategy: acknowledge, redirect, follow up]"

━━━ CLOSE ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[One sentence close adapted to tone]
+ Offer to send a written summary after ("I'll drop you a note with the key points")

━━━ IF IT GOES SIDEWAYS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[2–3 phrases to use if the conversation gets difficult, based on their archetype]
"Let me get back to you on that with specifics."
"That's a fair point — can I think about it and follow up?"
"I want to make sure I give you the right answer on this."

Step 6 — Save

Save to ./useless-report/[date]/[manager-name]-call-prep.md (markdown — readable anywhere, phone-friendly).

Confirm:

Call prep prêt → useless-report/2026-05-01/alice-call-prep.md
Mode : status_update · Style : assertive · Archétype : control_oriented

User persona in config.yml

The skill reads and writes the user section of .useless-report/config.yml:

user:
  name: "[Prénom]"
  role: "[Titre / contexte]"
  style: assertive          # assertive | diplomatic | data-driven | storyteller | minimalist
  tone: confident           # confident | humble | collaborative | direct
  strengths:
    - "delivery track record"
    - "technical depth"
    - "proactive risk management"

  # Modes de présentation par contexte
  modes:
    status_update: "data-first, let numbers speak, offer options"
    pitch:         "hook → problem → solution → ask, acknowledge concerns"
    bad_news:      "solution-first, context second, timeline always"
    escalation:    "ask-first, urgency clear, specific action requested"
    feedback:      "observation → impact → request, no blame"

If this section doesn't exist in config.yml, ask the user to fill it in once and save it. Never ask again.

Rules

• Sound like the user, not like a report. Adapt language to their style — don't generate corporate boilerplate.
• One ask per call. Don't generate a list of asks. Pick the most important one.
• Ground everything in the report data. No invented achievements or metrics.
• Flag the danger topic. Every call has one thing that could derail it — name it.
• Mobile-friendly output. This is read just before or during a call. Keep it scannable.

Pipeline position

generate-X-report + user persona + manager archetype
              ↓
     format-as-call-prep  ← you are here
              ↓
   [manager]-call-prep.md
              ↓
   Read before dialing. Close the deal.