In lean manufacturing, making work visible is about organizing work so that everyone involved is clear at all times what the status of work is, and the most important next steps are obvious. As I’ve written earlier, the core of lean is the development of awareness of value and waste, and you can’t be aware of what you can’t see.
In lean communication, it’s about structuring your message so that a) you can see clearly what you’re saying, and b) your listeners can too. You need a clear structure that exposes your logic so you more can easily spot flaws and gaps, and correct them before someone else does for you. That structure also makes it more likely that listeners will get the meaning you intend, not the one that they might infer.
If it means outlining a long message or presentation, so be it. Mindmapping might also help, but a traditional outline is usually better because you still have to speak sequentially. Besides outlining as you prepare your remarks, you can “tell them what you’re going to tell them.” (But I don’t recommend telling them what you told them, if you can see that they got it—that would violate the pull principle of lean communication.)
If it means following a template, there’s nothing wrong with that either. Templates keep you from reinventing the wheel every time you speak and ensure you don’t miss anything critical. The best template is the one that systematically answers the likely questions in the audience’s mind.
Besides having a clear structure, it helps even more to make the structure visible by having signposts and highlights while you’re speaking. For example, if someone asks you what could delay your project, you might say: “There are three possible risks. The first is…”
By making it easy for others to follow you’re adding value, reducing waste, and making yourself appear more credible at the same time.
Give them what they want when they want it
In lean manufacturing it’s called kanban, or pull. Rather than pumping out tons of inventory in the hope that someone will buy it, the producer makes what’s needed as needed, when the customer asks for it. This prevents the buildup of inventory which costs money, takes up space, and leads to frequent mismatches between what’s needed and what’s available.
The same thing happens in communications. Most speakers, whether presenting or in a conversation, give their listeners more than they need. For example, how often do you read to the end of an article such as this one? One indication of the amount of waste in the typical communication is that most people don’t “consume” 100% of what is expressed. But here’s the problem. It’s like what John Wanamaker said about advertising: “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don’t know which half.”
How do you know what they need?
You can try to narrow it down by knowing your audience, but you will never know for sure. It’s like a company that introduces a new product. Despite focus groups and pilots, most new product launches fail. The only way to know a product will work is to put it out there and see what sells. As a speaker, you want to follow the same approach, but the good news is that it doesn’t cost you as much, and you can pivot quickly when you note that something isn’t selling.
How does pull work in communication?
You give the bare minimum needed for the listener to get your gist, and then add as necessary. It’s like a newspaper article. The headline gives you the point of the story (if it’s written correctly), and then the first paragraph (what journalists call the nut graf) encapsulates the story in one easily digestible piece. Sometimes that’s enough, but often it sparks curiosity or drives additional questions. You may worry that too much pull will cause you to lose control, but that’s a lot less likely if you are perfectly clear about your main point and structure right up front.
When I coach clients on how to present to executives, they often complain that they barely get past the first slide of their carefully crafted presentation before they are peppered with questions from the audience. I tell them that, within limits, that’s a good thing. It’s kanban communication in action—they know that they are targeting what their audience wants and needs to hear. Especially when presenting to impatient senior executives, you should always be prepared for them to take control of your presentation. When they ask the question, you can bet they will listen to the answer.
Pull communication solves the problem of tailoring your presentation to the knowledge level and interests of your listeners. You may begin with a detailed explanation of the problem only to find out that your audience already knows about it and is impatient to get to your recommended solutions, for example.
Pull also affects the level of detail on your slides. Keep it limited to headlines and a few keywords and visuals for support, and have additional detail available on backup slides just in case. Nothing makes you look better prepared and more considerate of your audience than responding to a difficult question by pulling up just the information needed just when it’s needed.
Of course, pull won’t work if you’re not actively paying attention to your listeners and inviting questions as you’re talking, which of course is another reason to keep it simple at the start.
In the early 80s there was a major controversy between advocates of supply-side and demand-side economics, and I’m not even sure which side was proven right. I do know, however, that demand-side works wonders in lean communication.
Do this before you speak
If value in lean communication is anything the listener wants or needs to hear, waste is any work or input that does not contribute to value. As anyone who has endured excruciatingly boring and unproductive meetings (i.e. you, me, and everyone else) can attest, there is waste everywhere in communication: excessive detail, self-serving “chest beating” about how great your company is, inaccuracies, long stories, ambiguous terms, meaningless clichés, etc. In fact, there is so much waste in communication that it would waste your time trying to list it all.
Waste has consequences. Lost time is the most obvious, and in today’s frenetic business world, none of us has much of it to spare for pointless blather. But the deeper and more costly consequence is that it prevents us from focusing on the essential and devoting enough time to making the right decisions based on the information we do glean from the mountain of extraneous words.
Don’t get too efficient
Waste can’t be eliminated from communication, nor should it be. I first titled this article eliminating waste, but decided that’s too crazy. In fact, trying too hard can be wasteful in itself. Hemingway achieved his lean writing style only by going through as many as twenty revisions, but we’renot striving for timeless literature—just effectiveness. The great thing about dialogue is that there is a lot of room for accommodation by both sides. Even if someone is not perfectly precise in what they’re saying, we usually get it. Good enough is usually good enough.
Besides, you need to have slack built into any conversation or presentation, because you can never anticipate exactly how the other party will react—what questions they will ask, information they might add, or perspective they might share. That said, here are some things you can do.
Countermeasures
First, realize that you don’t get to define what waste is; the recipient does. You may think that context is unnecessary because you know the background and the big picture, but the listener may need that context. You may think small talk is wasteful because it takes time away from the task, but the amiable listener may think it’s crucial to sizing you up. That means that the first step in reducing waste is to put yourself into the other’s shoes and see the situation from their point of view. How much do they already know? What’s the minimum they need or care about to use the information? Where are they in their buying or decision cycle?
Second, clearly identify the purpose of the conversation and then apply the Four-I Test: what’s integral to your purpose for the conversation; what’s important; what’s interesting; what’s totally irrelevant? Lead with the first, have the second ready as the conversation dictates, save the third for the discussion over a beer later on, and erase the fourth from your memory.
Third—if you have time and if it’s important enough—rehearse what you’ve prepared to say, preferably with a disinterested observer who can tell you what sounds confusing or ambiguous, spot gaps in our thinking, and tell you what makes them tune out.
Fourth, during the conversation or presentation, pay close attention to the listener’s reactions and be prepared to add or subtract, speed up or slow down as necessary. Let their reaction pull the appropriate information, as we will cover in the next article of this series.
In the introductory post to this series, we defined lean communication as the ability to provide maximum value with minimum waste. I’ll define Value as anything the recipient[1] wants or needs to hear and see.
Speakers deliver value through content and expression; the speaker must deliver the right content in the right way so that the recipient benefits. If you think of a communication opportunity as a product, expression is the package and content is the end product.
Let’s start with expression, because it’s the packaging of your content. Expression consists of making the content understandable without a lot of work on the part of the recipient. You know those products on the market today that are packaged in nearly impregnable plastic shells that endanger your health just trying to get them open? That’s how some presentations and explanations come across. Convoluted structure, meaningless buzzwords, and excessive verbiage are the hard plastic of that listeners struggle to get through to get access to the content.
An end product can fail to deliver the intended value if it’s the wrong product, does not deliver all the needed benefits, or delivers more than the user needs. It’s the same with communication: the recipient expects content that is accurate, sufficient, and relevant. You won’t communicate the necessary value if you have wrong information; or leaves your audience lacking crucial bits of the puzzle to make the best decision; or tell them far more than they need.
The relevance criterion is the most common violation. Assuming you are communicating in good faith, you probably have reasonably accurate and sufficient content for the listener, but it’s easy to give too much information. You may tell a story that’s fascinating but irrelevant, provide too much background detail to someone who is already familiar with the situation, or simply ramble on through undisciplined communication or lack of confidence. Too much information wastes time, but it can also detract from value by making it difficult for the listener to sort out exactly what they need to know—more is usually less.
How to ensure maximum value?
The surest way to deliver value in communication is to think before you speak. Be clear in your own mind what you want the listener to know or do, and why. If that means writing down your thoughts before an important discussion, it’s an investment that almost always carries a positive return, especially in terms of improving the packaging.
The what usually comes easy, but you can only be clear about the why through outside-in thinking, or seeing the situation through the other’s perspective and interests. That takes time, research, and preparation.
Even in a more casual communication, you can impart greater value by applying the So What filter to everything you say: what does this information mean to this listener at this time? The so what might be different for each particular receiver, depending on their needs, and their previous knowledge levels and attitudes.
Finally, you can create more value for the listener by being a listener yourself. Where communication differs from the product analogy is that you have real time control over the product as you deliver it. Pay attention to the effect your message is having on the recipient, and be prepared to add, delete or modify on the spot as necessary.
Tomorrow’s post will examine the many ways you can achieve lean communication by identifying and eliminating waste.
P.S. Although I usually add a picture to my posts, I could not think of one that would add any value at all.
