Lacks an Authoritative Voice
The ability to deliver an effective message has long been one of the quintessential qualities of a leader - the ability to organize your message, compose your thoughts into paragraphs and sentences, and even use the most effective words to get their point across and inspire confidence in others. Again, this is as true in everyday conversations as it is in formal speeches. Some key points:
Get to the Point
The primary reason for communicating with others is to get your point across, succinctly and clearly, and many people fail to do so: they bore the listener with details, or a ramble, which buries the point that they had intended to make.
It is expected that this is a matter of risk aversion (if you make no point, you won't be wrong) or possibly lack of confidence (if you make a point, but have to couch it in conditions and qualifiers). In the worst of cases, it is a mark of incompetence: a person merely regurgitates facts without drawing a conclusion at all.
That's not to say that sharing the details behind a decision, being frank about assumptions, and showing the thoroughness of your thinking are necessarily bad, just that they should not overwhelm the point.
Speak with Logic
Logic pertains to the arrangement of details: if you hose the audience down with a jumble of information, they won't understand - and they will generally assume that you don't understand it either.
And so, plan your presentation. A suggested approach to presenting a problem solution is:
- State the problem
- State the cause of the problem
- State the consequences (why is it considered a problem)
- Present your solution
- Present the downside
- Present the upside
- Tell what needs to be done to make it happen
Regardless of whether you're doing a presentation, and informal discussion, or an e-mail, consider the arrangement of facts to show their logical relation to the point you're making.
Bottom Line Last
Special attention must be paid to giving bad news, to which you audience may not be receptive, or with which they may disagree. In such a scenario, you must provide objective information with which they will agree before communicating your analysis, then ending with a suggested course of action (which is the point).
The "bottom line last" pattern is:
- Provide one or more examples of the problem
- Indicate your analysis (suspected cause)
- Indicate a course of action
This is especially useful for coaching subordinates: here's what I've noticed, here's why I think it's a problem, and here's what I want/expect you to do in the future.
Tailor-Made Templates
The author presents a couple of additional templates for conversation.
When dealing with a problem:
- State the issue
- Tell the other person why they should card
- Indicate the impact to the organization
- Suggest what needs to be done to address the issue
When presenting an opportunity:
- Indicate the opportunity
- Indicate the benefits of acting on it
- Offer proof of your analysis
- Indicate your conviction to pursue it (or avoid it)
Improving Your Syntax
"Syntax" happens on the sentence level - the author suggests paying attention to it, but doesn't provide much detailed advice, other than to quote some passages from politicians who communicate well.
What he seems to be getting at is the power of a short sentence, as opposed to a lengthy and complex one, in getting your point across.
Sentences and Words
Short sentences are easier to speak, and to understand, than longer and more complex ones. The author provided an example of a speaker who seemed to get lost in the middle of his own sentences - comical, but also somewhat true.
Likewise, prefer short words to long ones: "big" words no longer create an impression of importance - instead, they make a person seem pompous, and makes the audience question whether they are trying to make a trivial matter seem more important than it really is.
Using Pauses as Accents
When speaking, a pause can have a dramatic effect - the silence can set off a salient point. Regular use of pauses helps pace your presentation, helps audiences to follow your logic rather than hearing a jumble of words.
A pause is also a much better alternative to an "uh" or an "um" or any of the various nonsense syllables people tend to use to fill in the gaps. The latter also make speakers seem less intelligent and less prepared.
Vowels and Consonants
I'm not really sure what the author is on about here, but he suggests that stressing or elongating vowels gives a speaker a weaker, whinier tone, whereas stressing consonants makes a person seem more decisive and confident.
End Positive
A technique to avoid sounding negative and pessimistic is ending on a positive note. Even if your news is largely negative, find a positive note to end on.
Figures of Speech
The author provides a short list of figures of speech (other than the common simile and metaphor) that can be effective. It's a bit sloppy and random, so I'm not going to retype the list here.