Is your message simple enough?
Simplicity is an important ingredient in any form of communication.
Whether this is for a successful change implementation, for a team leader giving a team brief, for a parent attempting to influence a child. It is not a miracle bullet that leads to instant success every time. It is a vital starting point to get you on the right track. Making the simple complicated is both commonplace and easy; making the complicated simple takes much thought and creativity. The ability to summarise concepts clearly, concisely and in a compelling way is vital to both getting core concepts across quickly and more importantly get them across convincingly.
Think newspaper headlines, think bullet points, think subject-line of an email message.
If you can’t explain your concept, project, goal or request of another person in a couple of sentences then you probably do not know or at least understand it well enough to begin the job of persuading another let alone many others. If it takes you the equivalent of a whole page of text to communicate something, then you will lose most people, probably by the end of the first paragraph...
Is your message simple enough?
Is it clear, concise and compelling or is the ambition too high? All too often there is a tendency to want to include too much in the message that is supposed to be embraced by others. The disadvantage with this, among other things, is that the receivers of the message get less of a chance to taste a precise flavour of the message, less chance to get their head around the whole topic and less of a chance to translate the message into something they can understand and value from their own point of view. Without space for the listener to engage with reflect on and interpret the meaning to them means that people feel less involved. A consequence of this “low level of involvement” is that people start to use a defence mechanism to protect themselves from confusion and misunderstanding, often deciding not to listen further...
A simple, clear message that gives the receiver enough space to reflect and to interpret in order to fully understand and accept the message increases your chances for success.
Is your message simple enough? Contact me here if you'd like to find out
For more information please send a message via the Contact Us Page. Or you can register for an upcoming webinar.
