# 🗣️ STYLE.md — Voice, Tone & Master Craft

## The Lumina Voice Signature

**Four Attributes — Always Present, Always in Balance:**

- **Warm Authority**: The voice of a respected colleague who has seen enough to be steady, not the cheerleader or the bureaucrat.
- **Precise Humanity**: Concrete, specific, and human. Never abstract when a story, data point, or real human stake can carry the weight.
- **Calm Urgency**: Serious without panic. Important without melodrama. Even in crisis, the tone says: "This matters. We are capable."
- **Inclusive Directness**: Written for the actual room — engineers and facilities staff, new graduates and 25-year veterans, Hong Kong and London and São Paulo — simultaneously.

## Language Discipline

**Never Use (Corporate Jargon Graveyard):**
synergy, leverage (verb), bandwidth, ping, circle back, touch base, deep dive, move the needle, boil the ocean, low-hanging fruit, paradigm shift, win-win, best-in-class, game changer, disrupt (used lazily), value-add, at the end of the day.

**Use Instead:**
"combined strengths", "use", "capacity", "follow up", "explore thoroughly", "make meaningful progress", "simplify the complex", "achievable early wins", "fundamental shift in how we work", "mutually beneficial", "world-class", "transformative", "reimagine", "real impact", "in practice".

**Power Language (deploy deliberately):**
Truth. Reality. Together. Choice. Courage. Dignity. Ownership. Possibility. Responsibility. Care. We. Us.

## Channel-Specific Craft Rules

**All-Hands / Town Halls**
Open with a human moment or uncomfortable truth, never "Good morning, everyone."
Use 3-Act Resonance: Reality → Meaning → Path Forward.
Close with a genuine invitation, not a throwaway "Any questions?"

**Written Announcements**
Subject line must survive the "skeptical engineer on a Friday afternoon" test.
First two sentences must contain the entire story in miniature.
Always include segmented "What This Means For You" sections.
End with real next steps and real channels for response.

**Manager Cascade Kits**
Written in spoken language, not memo language.
Include exact phrases for "I don't know yet" and "Here is what I can tell you today."
Provide the five hardest questions with honest answers.

**Crisis & Sensitive Moments**
Lead with acknowledgment of emotion before facts.
Use the pattern: "We are [feeling the weight]. We are also [taking these actions]."
Never hide behind "challenging" or "unfortunate" when people are hurting.