LPT: Study Brevity
In skilled settings, learn to discuss with readability and conciseness. Talk about one subject at a time. Break between matters, make certain everybody is able to transfer on to a different one. Pause typically to permit others to talk.
A scarcity of brevity is one purpose why others will lose respect for you. Should you ramble, it sounds such as you lack confidence, and don’t really perceive the subject. You danger boring your viewers. It sounds such as you don’t care what different individuals need to say (that is significantly true in case you are a supervisor). On convention calls and Zoom conferences, all of that is even worse because of lag.
Take note of the way you discuss. You’re not giving a TED discuss, you’re collaborating with a crew. Discover ways to communicate with readability and focus, and it’ll go significantly better.
Comments ( 42 )
This is a good one. One thing that took me a while to learn is to stop pre-explaining everything; concisely explain what you need, and give the audience a chance to ask questions so they can interact and have a better chance of forming lasting neural connections. If you feel they didn’t ask a question they should have, then you can phrase that topic as a question to them to check their understanding.
Speak with purpose
Hah also never say “this is easy.” When teaching someone. People often say it to encourage others that they can learn it without becoming an expert, but it may not be a concept as easily grasped by others. It is easy for you because you know it. Everyone thinks in a very different way. I visualize the parts and components and how they fit together and my little sister thinks in terms of words not visuals. This means we find very different things easy.
This is so essential to professional communication, and unfortunately (at least in my experience) severely under emphasized in school.
Do we need 10 pages on a topic? No.
We need you to boil it down to 3 bullets, and be available for clarifying questions.
Yes! Communicate efficiently.
“Can I ask you a question?”
*You just fucking did, just ask the goddamn question next time*
LPT: Speak shorter
It’s also harder for the listener to get your point when it’s lost in word salad.
Hey Siri, what does brevity mean?
I developed a reputation over time for holding back my opinions, and found people pay a lot more attention when I finally do speak.
Then when I do speak, as precisely and briefly as I can, I’m considered very sage.
Really I just let those with less self control blurt out their ideas so I could see how they land, and know where to best position myself, and by letting them babble their reasons my follow up can be concise because they already filled in a lot of the underlying reasoning.
Hey! Can you explain this to the owner of the company I work for? Thanks!
I’m the Dude. So that’s what you call me. You know, that or, uh, His Dudeness, or uh, Duder, or El Duderino if you’re not into the whole brevity thing
I struggle with this, because I hate being that person that over explains things, but every time I try to be brief I end up getting misunderstood.
This is an area I’m really working on. In calm settings, I’m concise and clear. But in presentations, I tend to be unclear and ramble. I have a hard time discerning what needs to explained vs what would be intuitive to the audience.
Are there books/resources on this topic that anyone here recommends?
Ahh, you must have been in that meeting earlier today.
I’ll go a step further and suggest that you say only what really needs to be said.
So if you’re inexperienced, shut up and listen.
If you pay attention and taking notes you will look smart. Nod when you hear something smart, let people see that you get it. Soon, you’ll actually *be* smart.
If you’re the boss, shut up and listen.
If things are going the right way, keep quiet. Say “great point” or “way to go” when someone says something smart. When the team reaches the solution you could have pointed out a long time ago ago, thank them and tell them they did great. Your job is to build a smart, confident team, not to show off.
If things are NOT going well, turn to the Socratic method. Ask brief questions to help redirect the debate. Help people find their way, then go back to listening.
People will learn to listen when you speak up, because they will be trained to expect that what you say will be useful.
A good guideline is to spend 90% of your time listening and only 10% talking.
Fox (number)
Simulated/actual launch of air-to-air weapons.
ONE – semiactive radar-guided missile, such as an AIM-7 Sparrow or Skyflash.
TWO – infrared-guided missile, such as an AIM-9 Sidewinder or AIM-132 ASRAAM.
THREE – active radar-guided missile, such as an AIM-120 AMRAAM or AIM-54 Phoenix.
FOUR – (outdated) air-to-air or air-to-surface gunfire. Replaced by Guns.
Bro. Not even just a professional setting, so many people in life lack the ability to have conversations in which they listen and understand each other
Making a good first impression heavily relies on this tactic.
Give only the exact amount of information you need to and wait for a response. Then actually listen to what the other person said and reply directly to that, no side ideas or things you were just waiting to blurt out the second they were done speaking.
I have ADHD so these are things I remind myself of all the time.
I’d love to, but how??? Is there a good resource for this? As someone who is more ‘creative’ (left handed, right brained) I find it impossible to think in a straight line. When I try to explain stuff to others it comes out in a jumbled mess with lots of unrelated information unless I’ve memorized it practically verbatim as a script beforehand, and even then I have a tendency to go off script because I feel the need to share something in the moment. I really wish I could fix this.
Not only that, learn to write single page memos. Write and rewrite right if you must, but keep it short and stay on topic.
BLUFF: Bottom Line Up Front First. I started all my public speaking engagements with that.*
From there, a maximum of 3 distilled supporting ideas.
Ppl have short attention spans so you need to tailor your shit to work with what ppl can absorb.
* I did 10 years of PSEs at the end of my career. Constant travel, yada yada. Indeed, I would joke about how the BLUFF is the thing that you need to pay attention to & you can tune out after that if the sound of my voice puts you to sleep.
“Confused IN ADHD* how do I acquire this skill? Lol
“Brevity is the soul of wit” – William Shakespeare
Learn how to say something, and be ready to say it again. Because no matter how clear and concise you are, a lot of responses after an initial statement or question will be “Wait, what did you just say?”
A good conversation is like a mini skirt. Short enough to retain interest, but long enough to cover the subject matter.
Man this was a long post.
I have Adhd so goodbye i’m fucked
TL;DR: In professional settings, speak clearly and concisely, focusing on one topic at a time. Rambling can lead to loss of respect and disengagement. Be mindful of your communication style, especially in virtual meetings, to foster better collaboration and understanding.
Thanks for this PSA. I can’t stand when colleagues send long emails filled with rambling run-on sentences! I wish they would just get to the point without a preamble and rehash.
If brevity is the soul of wit i suppose this post implies that people will (and should) lose respect for you based on your candor and percieved professionalism.
Experience based opinions to the back. I only respect quick witty overviews with zero fat to chew on.
Not saying its all bad. But speaking so matter of factly about people losing your respect for not being concise is ridiculous. If the perception of confidence is all it takes to win you over then i fear the worst for the future of whatever business youre in.
I often times like to dig deeper into a persons full understanding of the topic they use catchy witticisms about. If they cant surmise their point in a different phrasing then to me it feels they have simply learned buzzwords and a few nice sounding sentences in hopes of swaying their audience to view them as more than they really are.
Im highly skeptical if you never break and maintain brevity through every interaction.
My ADHD and I are laughing our asses off rn.
I think this is at least half of the reason why people like me. I actually listen when people are talking, I never interrupt, I try not to ramble on, and I only talk if I think it’ll contribute to the conversation.
While I completely agree, the downside is two fold.
One, you’ll learn how dumb some of your coworkers are. Without a detailed map, they’ll get lost and ask lots of dumb questions.
Two, if you’re a woman, some man will repeat your idea and others in the group, particularly men, will pretend you said nothing.
“The fuck is this?” Vs “The fuck?”
El duderino if you’re not into the whole brevity thing
the ADHD makes this one tough but we are trying!
What if I have ADHD and speak compulsively?
>If you ramble, it sounds like you lack confidence, and don’t truly understand the topic.
So I guess fuck everyone with adhd/a mental disorder that prevents them from being a concise orater.
TL;DR: Be brief, concise, simple, and accurate like a spear. Better a quiet genius then to let others know you are an idiot.
TL;DR2: Be brief, concise, simple, and accurate.
TL;DR3: Be brief yet accurate.
TL;DR4: Be brief
TL;DR5: BB
TL;DR: AH!
This is a great PLT – if you don’t have trauma from narcissistic parents or are on the autism spectrum. Changing the way your entire brain works just doesn’t happen like that.
This is *especially* hard to learn for those of us with ADHD who 1) have half a dozen coexisting/competing linear & compounding thoughts 2) process our thoughts better out loud 3) have a tendency to seek external validation, limiting decisiveness 4) are used to having our realities denied & needing to reiterate what we believe/desire before being taken seriously/conciliated.
At the end of the day, it *can* be done with *tons* & *tons* of practice, failure, humility, support, & self-forgiveness (not to mention varying combinations of medication & therapy). The process & the results *will* look different in us & that’s OK.