When you hear the term lean communication, what immediately comes to mind? Most people who have heard about my new book but haven’t yet read it, immediately assume that it’s all about being brief. They’re partly right, but also totally wrong.
Using lean terms, brevity is important, but value is integral to your message. Brevity is important to lean communication just as a reasonable price is important when you buy a product. You don’t want to overpay, but that’s not the first thing you think about. Your first consideration is what that product will do for you—how it will make you better off. If you don’t want or need it, any price is too high, and if you really need it, almost any price is reasonable.
So when you’re planning what to say, find the value in your message first, and then work to make it as “affordable” as possible by making it brief and clear.
If you strive for brevity without thinking about value, that’s not lean–it’s just plain skinny.
If you’re a knowledge worker, the quality of your output depends on three skills: learning, thinking and communicating. As I argue in Lean Communication, communication is the most important of the three. That’s because it’s possible to learn and think well and not be a good communicator, but you can’t communicate well without also being good at the first two.
You don’t have to take my word for it; I’ve got backup for this argument from an unexpected source. In reading David Murray’s excellent new book, An Effort to Understand, I came across this quote from Isocrates, one of my long-ago predecessors in the presentations training business:
“…for the power to speak well is taken as the surest index of a sound understanding, and discourse which is true and lawful and just is the outward image of a good and faithful soul….[W]e shall find that none of the things that are done with intelligence takes place without the help of speech.”
The idea that intelligence requires the help of speech still rings true today. We’ve all had the feeling of having a brilliant thought that revealed its flaws the first time we tried to articulate it, and which forced us to rethink more clearly.
Learning and thinking create good ideas, but it takes communication to bring them to life through others. Think of all that brilliance in your head as potential energy, which can only be transformed into kinetic energy through effective communication.
It’s finally here! My latest book, Lean Communication: Talk Less, Say More.
If I could sum up my book in seven words it would be: communication should be helpful, brief, and clear.
It sounds obvious, but it’s hard to do, which is why I’ve spent the past five years learning, teaching and refining the principles of lean communication.
Lean communication is a mindset and set of principles and practices to apply lean thinking to become a better thinker and communicator. In the manufacturing world, lean thinking has produced exceptional improvements in productivity and customer value. Manufacturing is a process that takes in raw materials, applies work to them, and produces something a customer values. This single-minded focus on creating more value with less waste carries many lessons that also apply directly to communication, which is a process that takes in information, applies thinking to them, and produces a message a listener values.
The result: ten powerful keys to ensure that you consistently communicate useful information, briefly and clearly.
In a world filled with vast amounts of noise and distraction, the only way to gain and sustain attention is to communicate more value with less waste. In short, you need Lean Communication.
Do yourself a big favor and get a copy of Lean Communication: Talk Less, Say More.
Do yourself an even bigger favor and buy copies for the people who speak to you most.
In human relationships, there’s the common idea that intention trumps technique. As long as you have sincere good intentions, you’ve got a head start on likeability and persuasiveness because your counterpart will sense it and will appreciate your efforts.
I definitely agree that good intentions are a critical necessity, but they are not enough. In fact, your good intentions can actually work against you if you’re not careful. Here are four of the top ways your good intentions can bite back, with suggestions to safeguard against them.
Reactance: There’s an old joke that the best way to get something done is to forbid a teenager to do it. The only problem with that joke is that it gives teenagers a bad name. As we’ve seen with the mask wearing debate going on right now in our country, even adults—maybe especially adults—will take action against their own interests if they feel someone is unfairly taking away their freedom to choose their own actions.
Solution: Give people options.
Pushing too far too fast: According to social judgment theory, people can hold a variety of attitudes toward an idea, ranging from complete acceptance to complete rejection. There is usually a little wiggle room called the “latitude of acceptance” that each person is comfortable with. In most cases, people can be moved slightly from their current positions. It’s reasonable and possible to move someone from opposition to skepticism or even possibly neutrality. But outside that latitude is the “zone of rejection”, and if you try to move them too far too fast, they not only won’t move, but they will move in the opposite direction. Your best efforts will only drive them further away.
Solution: Know your audience and use strategic patience.
Putting people down: You may feel tempted to give others the benefit of your wisdom and experience by providing excellent advice. But that’s just the problem. They may react as if they are in a one-down position. We all want to preserve our status, and we may be overly sensitive to threats to our status. Ironically, trying to help someone by giving them well-intentioned advice can actually make them feel in a “one-down” position (as described by psychologist Edgar Schein).
You may also try too hard to portray confidence in your own position and come across to the other person as cocky or arrogant, in which case they will put you in your place by doing the opposite of what you ask.
Solution: Use questions to make it the other person’s idea.
Misreading motivation: Motivation comes in two forms, extrinsic and intrinsic. Rationally, you might expect that appealing to both at the same time would be the most persuasive approach, but in fact it can backfire. Offer someone an extrinsic incentive to do the right thing, and they may easily get insulted. In Made to Stick, Chip and Dan Heath tell the story of a seller of safety videos that tested two approaches. One approach simply asked firefighters if they would be interested in the videos for their educational programs, and they received unanimous positive responses. The second approach offered a choice between a set of steak knives and a popcorn popper as an inducement to trial the video, and they discontinued the trial after the first two attempts were met with cursing refusals.
Solution: Lead with intrinsic appeal; you can always throw in extrinsic if necessary.
As a persuader, you should follow a version of the Hippocratic Oath: “First, do no harm.” Feel free to do what you want, but I think you’re smart enough to know that you need to supplement your good intentions with careful preparation, outside-in thinking, and respect.
