Keeping Things Brief

Joe McCormack: Yes, if you have children or adolescents, if you have an experience and you ask them how school was they'll say fine, and you ask them how are they doing and they'll say good, so single word answers sometimes can be examples of being too brief, but for the most part there's an irony in being brief which is when you're really clear and concise and you say less, people want to hear more. And if you think about anything in your life that is something that you're really enjoying, you don't want it to end, and the irony here is that when you live in an information age people have so much to say and so many ways to say it that they drown their audience, and the point of the book is that in that moment a professional needs an essential skill which is a mastery of brevity so that when the audience hears it they understand it and they want to hear more.

Rachel Salaman: So the idea is that you start brief and succinct and then you can give more as and when it's required or needed, is that the idea?

Joe McCormack: Yes, it's not to tell people that they need to speak in sound bites or need to carry a stopwatch or need to be neurotically aware of time, it's just that the people around them are inundated with information and they have a hard time paying attention. It's their professional obligation to be able to give them the essentials of what they need and as they need more they will ask for more. So a perfect example of this is when a person is at work and you're at your desk and you're working, and somebody knocks at your door and they say do you have a minute and the answer is sure, so they accept okay this is going to take a minute or two, and what ends up happening is the tendency that people have is they don't prepare, so there is no way that this could last a minute or two because they've not prepared what they're going to talk about, and it ends up taking five to ten minutes, the person gets annoyed, they start thinking bad things about the person that interrupted them and it just goes badly, so the idea of the book is that you have to have the awareness that people don't have as much time and attention as they used to, so you have to be better prepared and you have to know when and where you need to be brief, and that's not all the time but there are key moments certainly like emails, phone calls and meetings that you have to be better at brevity.

Rachel Salaman: In the book you talk about something called the elusive 600, an interesting idea, can you explain that?

Joe McCormack: So what happens in the elusive 600 is that people have the mental ability to process 750 words per minute and people speak about 150 words per minute, and these are averages, so if you do the quick math, 750 minus 150 leaves about 600 extra words that are floating around in people's heads, and when you're talking to somebody and they get distracted, that elusive 600 is the source of their distraction, so if they see a bird fly by or if their phone rings in their pocket or they have another idea, those 600 words are where inattention and distraction live. So the obligation is that when you're speaking or you're communicating with somebody that you have to be aware that even though I'm only saying 150 words, they have the ability to hear 600 words that may or not be related to anything I'm talking about, so even in this podcast people might be thinking about I'm writing an email or somebody just walked by my office or I forgot to turn the oven off at home. So it's a key consideration in the work that I've done with my clients that people are not aware of how powerful that distraction is in people's heads, and that alone changes people's awareness that I have to say less because I don't want people to get distracted.

Rachel Salaman: So could you explain a bit more how the idea of the elusive 600 fits into your idea that we all need to be more succinct?

Joe McCormack: An example would be to imagine a person who is selling, a salesperson, and everybody in one shape or form is selling, so they're selling ideas, projects, proposals, new initiatives, and you have a few minutes of a person's time to do that, so let's say that I have two minutes to share an idea that I have with somebody, that's about 300 words, so if I'm doing it and I'm really well prepared and I'm really clear and it's really concise and I'm really getting at the essential, the person I'm talking to has the potential of hearing 1500 words. So when you hear a really good idea, a person says a little but you hear a lot and when you're thinking about the most clear and effective and authentic connections that people have, people tell me that all the time, I said a little bit but then they hear, like your imagination starts to run wild like this would be a great idea and I could see this for our company and what I like about this, and those precious two minutes I am saying little but people's listening, it's not what I'm saying, it's what people are hearing. Think about how movies get funded or business ideas get endorsed, those all happen in very short moments where people have clarity and you don't over explain something, and it's almost like igniting the ignition and there's a spark and then there's an explosion, so in those precious minutes it's when magic happens.

Rachel Salaman: In the book you offer four approaches to help people develop the skill of being brief and you call them Map It, Tell It, Talk It and Show It, so could you share some of those tips now, starting with Map It, what kind of map are you talking about and how does it help?

Joe McCormack: The kind of map I'm talking about is called a visual map or a mind map, so what I'm really talking about is preparing an outline, it happens to be a visual outline, so imagine just for a second an 8x10 inch piece of paper with a circle in the middle and six circles around it, and in that map you can map out or write in, okay what is my main idea and then what are the four, five or six supporting ideas, and that outline organizes or makes logical the information I want to communicate. So I go back to earlier in people's careers, even like when they're in school and go back to reminding professionals that it's their obligation to create an outline in maps or visual outlines that help organize what I'm going to say so when a person hears it, it makes sense and people often don't map things out, they don't prepare, they don't create an outline and they expect people to create order where there's disorder, so a good solid outline is how you map it. Now Tell It is using storytelling, everybody loves a good story so give me an illustration or an example of your idea, don't keep it as a theory, so if you're talking about integrity give me an example or if you're talking about the importance of being on time, give me an anecdote. People can bring in storytelling as a device, as a strategy within the day to day work, in meetings, I've seen many companies start to use narratives or short stories as a way of illustrating things that are boring, PowerPoint presentations that nobody really cares about, so that's the Tell It. And then the Talk It is, in brevity we want to make it not a presentation but a conversation, so I want people to say something and then to stop, and then to have the other respond, and then create a balanced conversation. So one of the benefits of brevity is that there are pauses where people stop talking and somebody else can say something, and oftentimes you see this with executives where it's a one-sided conversation and it's really never a conversation at all, it's just them talking and you have to listen, and research tells that people tune that out. So the four things are Map It, Tell It, Talk It and the last thing is Show It, so a picture is worth a thousand words, use illustrations, video, images to convey a point, it's much more memorable if a person shows you a picture than showing you 10 bullet points on a slide or if they have a brief video than talking about a theory, so those devices are ways to help people be clear and concise if they can map it, organize it, tell a story, be conversational, talk it and then show it using images.

Rachel Salaman: And is it about fitting the right one of those four approaches to each situation or might it be the case that you want to use all four approaches in one situation?

Joe McCormack: It's most powerful if you can use all four if you can, so tomorrow I have to give a presentation in San Diego, California, so it's a beautiful place, it's a conference, I'm speaking to a number of executives, so the first thing I have to do is put myself in their shoes, so they are in a room in a conference for three days and I'm speaking to them, so if I were in the room I would want it to be interesting, so I have to first map it and create an outline, and then I have to think of stories to illustrate my points, and then I have to talk it so I want to make a conversation with them so I might need to have an exercise or moments where we can interplay with each other, it's obviously much more difficult when you do this with a large group of people, but with small groups of people, I want to hear them, they should be talking to me and I need to show them, I need to include some visuals, so I have prepared two or three very short 30 to 60 second video vignettes so I can bring all those four things together in a 50 minute engagement meeting with them and it will be more meaningful and easier for them to get the point that I'm trying to make.

Rachel Salaman: Now interestingly enough some people might think yes, but it won't be any briefer.

Joe McCormack: Yes, brevity is not about a magic number of minutes, it's how long it feels, so I can have a brief discussion that lasts for 20 minutes, but in the same discussion if it's unorganized 20 minutes feels like an hour, so I'm not talking about you can't have an hour long presentation, I'm saying don't make the hour long presentation feel like a day, and they often feel like a day. At the end of a good conversation you have with a person, if it's a brief moment, that's what people describe in their lives, like a brief moment of my life, but it was meaningful and it was enjoyable, it was clear and it was like I didn't want it to end, and it's a stark contrast to the way most people engage which is please tell me when it's going to be over.

Rachel Salaman: So in a way what you're talking about is creating maximum quality of communication per moment.

Joe McCormack: Absolutely, again you go back to the problem that people are buried in information, they have way too much on their mind and then you come, so a person shows up who is going to give this brief moment of clarity and quality, and they are excited, they say that's the first person I've spoken to all day where I had a sense of relief, like I didn't have to do a lot of mental assembly, my elusive 600, my attention was completely focused on what they had to say, it almost felt easy and it's very rare today for people, to have a divided mind is to be all day long thinking what should I be focusing on and then when that moment of brevity comes it's like that's a relief for me.

Rachel Salaman: In the part of the book where you talk about storytelling and the importance of including that you actually include some warnings that people should bear in mind when they're thinking about using narrative storytelling, could you tell us a couple of those now?

Joe McCormack: The first warning is I'm not talking about storytelling, like once upon a time, and I think some people think of storytelling as like I'm sitting around a campfire and I'm talking about fables and there are these old-fashioned Greek mythology and I'm speaking specifically about examples or anecdotes that are real, that are pertinent and that would be of interest to somebody that could illustrate an idea, so it's creating context for people so they can understand a point, and I'm not talking about trying to go into the power of myth and intrigue and fables and things like that, it's not that type of storytelling, that's one warning sign. The other is when people discover storytelling, sometimes they overdo it, there is the power of a short story and everybody loves a story so don't abuse it and then make it a long story, and I've seen people, organizations embrace storytelling and then they waste even more time because everybody is telling stories all day but there's no point. The story should illustrate a point and it should be the right level of detail that tells the story so that you're not overwhelming them with story after story, and I've seen that warning sign just go unheeded and then people say well we tried that and it just wasted everybody's time and all the stories were long and I didn't understand the point. So those are two warning signs and we're not talking about a myth or fable type of storytelling and don't start telling long stories because they're going to miss the point.

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Rachel Salaman: Moving on to talking about the importance of conversations now, in the book you say that talking is more like tennis than golf, can you explain that idea?

Joe McCormack: It is that when you play tennis there is an expectation that I hit the ball and the ball comes back, so it takes two to play, but in golf it's just about me advancing the ball, so a lot of people look at communication as I'm trying to advance my point and I really don't care about you, you are just along for the ride, and it needs to be more balanced because if you're trying to make a point and you don't give a person the chance to reply, you have no way of knowing if they got the point, and most people hope that they get the point because they didn't ask any questions and that's very dangerous because you leave meetings thinking that you have understanding, agreement, and actually in reality what you have is you have spoken and you think it's great but you have no indication at all of what they think, and you need to have them hit the ball back or to respond to get any indication of understanding.

Rachel Salaman: And in this part of the book you highlight the importance of active listening, could you just tell us your definition of that and perhaps share some tips for people who find it difficult?

Joe McCormack: Active listening, I would just find that it's to be interested in what the other person has to say and ask questions which get the other person to talk, and when I was writing "Brief" and asking people questions I heard time and time again know your audience, know your audience, know your audience, well how do you know your audience without asking questions, so I need to know what matters to somebody and the only way for me to know is to actively listen and ask good questions. Oftentimes people have a hard time listening because they don't care, so if you talk to a good journalist, good journalists, it's not even active listening, they have a fascinated listening, they are really interested in the other person, well when you do that you create this chemistry with a person where they are like, I love talking to you because you're interested in me.

Rachel Salaman: In the book you talk about some of the other things that business people can learn from journalists in their communication style, can you tell us a few of those?

Joe McCormack: Number one is good journalism, there is always a strong headline, so they teach people in journalism school to not bury your lead or don't bury your headline, and if you think for a moment about what it would be like to read a newspaper and there was no headline and no good introductory paragraph and you had to wait till the end of the story, then people would abandon the story. So all good journalists have a good lead, so if you knocked on the door of somebody's office and you say do you have a minute, you should have a headline, I want to talk to you about something that's going to affect our sales performance, that's a headline, or I just had the most amazing conversation with a client and you have to hear it. So those are headlines that help me understand what you want to talk about and why it should be of interest to me. That is one example and the other thing is all good journalists have a sense that their audience is going to be a nanosecond from changing the channel or flipping the page, and they always realize that I have to have it be so interesting and so good that they don't want to change the channel or flip the page, and I think having that sense that I'm going to lose my audience, people in corporate settings don't think that way, they think the audience is captive, because the person is in the room it doesn't mean you have their attention, even if they're looking at you, so they could be thinking in the elusive 600 about when is this going to be over, I don't understand what he's talking about, she's confusing, this was a bad idea for me to accept this meeting, so even if they're smiling and nodding. And journalists would always have a more cynical sense of I'm losing my audience, if I were in their position I wouldn't care, how do I make this more interesting, more compelling, more concise.

Rachel Salaman: Now what about written communication, what are some of your tips about keeping that short and to the point?

Joe McCormack: The best advice with written communication, and it's actually funny because I've written a book called "Brief," and I would actually tell a person to buy another book, it's actually a smaller book and it's a better book and I feel like my book is carrying the torch, it's called "The Elements of Style," it's a brilliant book that was written, 50, 60, 70 years ago by Strunk and White and it's about how to be a better writer, and it's worth buying this book, it costs $10, it's not very expensive, it's ninety pages and in the middle of the book there is a section that has three magical words that every writer should live by and it's omit needless words. If you just did that in your writing and you omit needless words, your audience, the people that read your emails and your writing would thank you for the rest of their lives because that relief that they get, it's the best advice that I've ever been given as a writer, it's to omit needless words, especially writing a book about brevity you can only imagine my sensitivity for that kind of writing expectation.

Rachel Salaman: You also include in your book a section about how to keep meetings brief or as brief as they should be, what are your main points here?

Joe McCormack: The biggest suggestion I can give to people is just because you have an hour it doesn't mean you need to use it, so people schedule meetings very arbitrarily, like we'll have an hour meeting or a half hour meeting and I always like to think okay, everybody likes to get time back on their calendar. I was in a meeting because I do a lot of work with the U.S. Army, specifically with the special operations community and there are very high elite soldiers and there is a lot of expectation, so I had a meeting with one of their commanders and their command group, it was about five or six people and they are very busy people, so I asked for two hours on their calendar and they gave it to me because the topic was very important, so I prepared that meeting to finish early, and I finished in an hour and 15 minutes. We had a lot of material to cover and I finished in an hour and 15 minutes, and so at the end of an hour and 15 minutes I said do you know what, I've covered everything we need to cover, we're done at this point, you can leave now. And the commander said to the other people in the room, you guys can leave, I want to stay and continue talking to him. So the tip there was the commitment to the time can be very important, that they're giving you an hour, because they are saying to you that this time is important to me, but you don't have to use the whole time, cut it in half if you can, mention if they showed up late and had to leave early.

Rachel Salaman: Don't you also suggest that people should try standing up?

Joe McCormack: Yes, when people come into your office and they sit down there is an expectation that the meeting is going to last longer, and again there is a time and a place for long conversations, so I'm not against that. I learned this from the CEO of a company here in Chicago, he says that as a matter of principle if there is a conversation which really needs to be brief, he'll just stand and the people don't get comfortable and sit in this chair and then a five minute conversation turns into an hour unnecessarily, so he will use that a cue just to stay standing.

Rachel Salaman: Now it won't surprise anyone that you think we'd benefit from leaving a smaller digital footprint, how can people be briefer in their online life and what are the benefits do you think?

Joe McCormack: I think people think because Twitter has a 140 character limit that they are being brief and that may be farthest from the truth. Think about the frequency and how meaningful the information you're giving to a person is, you are communicating to and audience, just because it's less than 140 characters doesn't mean that it's meaningful for them. So people often have an irresistible urge in social media to start sharing everything that's happening and have no filter, even if it's in 140 characters I don't need to know that you've had a ham sandwich and that traffic was brutal this morning, how does that help me, and people look, like you have an audience, just like a journalist has an audience, where they tune you out and if they would tune you out, don't say it, and say it because there is a reason for them to read it. The same thing happens in email, people sit down with an email and the subject lines are weak at best, I have so many emails in my in box that say follow up, I don't know who it's from, I don't know what it's about, I open the email up and it's a person just writing a novel, and then you have this TLDR which is an acronym for too long didn't read, and the more skeptical audiences will hit back and say your emails, tighten them up, again omit needless words. And then the third example is video, the average video viewing length is less than three minutes, so if you're going to share a video, keep the snippets to two minutes, people make judgments about what they're going to watch or not watch given how long they are, so keeping them short and more compelling is always more powerful.

Rachel Salaman: So again it's about quality, not quantity?

Joe McCormack: Yes, there is no magic number, you'll look at a video and you'll say well that was 15 minutes but if it was really quality you'll stay with it, but it's hard to hold a person's attention over time, if you think about a formula about being clear and compelling over time or if you look at a quick math formula, the longer the time is the more clear and compelling you need to be, so it's not hard to be clear and compelling for two minutes, it's harder to be clear and compelling for two hours. So look at film makers and the good ones can do it and the bad ones struggle with it.

Rachel Salaman: In the book you highlight some specific situations where being brief is particularly effective, perhaps we could just talk about a couple of these and you can tell us why certain situations benefit from brevity.

Joe McCormack: When I was writing "Brief" I was very aware of people not thinking that the message is that you have to be brief all the time and that you have a stopwatch and that you're going to be neurotic about keeping track of time, there is a time and place for long conversations and there is a time and place for brief ones. A couple of examples of moments where you really need to be sensitive for your mastery of brevity is sharing bad news, if you've got harsh feedback or difficult feedback for somebody, they're doing something they need to improve, that's not a conversation you want to last forever, it's painful for them, it's like taking a band aid off, it's better doing it quickly, say what you've got to say and be done, they hear it or process it. If you've ever had the unfortunate position of having to lay somebody off or to sack them and you don't want to make that conversation last too long, that's one example, so sharing bad news. Another one is when people are interviewing, and when you're interviewing for a job that you really want the tendency is to get nervous, and when people get nervous they talk a lot, and when they talk a lot they say things that they didn't mean to say and they just somehow come out, so you have to be very disciplined about what you're saying so the answers are appropriate, but they don't last forever so the interviewer has a moment to process and then ask the next question. Another moment is when you're giving people updates, like progress reports, you have to prepare those moments, so if you knock on somebody's door and say I want to give you an update on this project that I'm working on, that you have a strong headline, three bullet points and a conclusion, and the person at the other end is thinking that was good, this person is doing a good job, I've got a clear sense of what's happening, I can ask a couple of questions and then we'll be done. Meetings are certainly examples, emails, presentations, but I think interviewing, sharing bad news, giving progress reports are the ones that people may not be thinking about where brevity might play.

Rachel Salaman: We've covered a lot of ground in this interview, what are the one or two most important takeaways for people do you think who would like to be more concise in their communications?

Joe McCormack: I think one of the first takeaways is understand people's tendencies, brevity is a discipline, it's a muscle and in your career nobody has taught you how to be brief, you learn through the school of trial and error, the school of hard knocks. I was interviewing somebody for the book and he said to me he works at the Pentagon and he's a general, and he was like I didn't learn how to do this at the college or West Point, they didn't teach me how to be brief, I had to learn how to do it, so understand your tendencies. There are a few of them that you need to be aware of, there is the tendency to under-prepare, there is a famous quote which is ‘I would have written you a shorter letter if I had more time'. Don't underestimate how important it is to prepare before you communicate something, and in that moment you can figure out the logic and the order of what you need to say, so that you are organizing it for the person that you are giving it to, you are making it easier for them. So people have a tendency to under-prepare, they just start talking or communicating. The second tendency is people have a tendency to over-explain, when you think it's been clear, then that's enough, people can hear more than you're saying, so respect their intelligence, you don't need to give them a PhD or a doctorate or a diploma. The third one is once you've made the point, stop talking, people will talk them through a sale, talk themselves out of a job, not know when to end, stop, create a pause, it might feel uncomfortable for a moment, but that gives a person the chance to process and react, and processing and reacting is the only indication that you have if they understand what you're talking about.

Rachel Salaman: Joe McCormack, thanks so much for joining me today.

Joe McCormack: It's been a pleasure.

Rachel Salaman: The name of Joe's book again is “Brief: Make a Bigger Impact by Saying Less.” You can find out more about it at www.thebrieflab.com where there is a range of resources. I'll be back in a few weeks with another Expert Interview, until then goodbye.