Why Starting With Why Isn't Enough
Next week I will be taking a dozen leaders through a workshop where they will be forced (in the politest way) to think through their business plans and present their strategies in a powerful and engaging way.
The majority of the group will do what happened with the group in my last workshop of this type a few weeks ago - they'll make the same communication mistake.
If you reflect on every piece of communication you have been subjected to in meetings this week, have a think about the one thing there has been 'too much of' in all of them.
Is it too much pleasantry at the beginning? Possibly
Is it too much time spent on one issue? Probably
Is it too much content? Most definitely
As someone that cannot keep their blogs under 1000 words I am as guilty as anyone else. But, the instinct and drive to shove facts, bullet points, and information down people's throats is killing all of our meetings.
But, it's also killing a few other things:
Our energy - the more stuff we need to listen to means there are more decisions to make causing a build up of Adenosine (ATP). This makes you tired.
Our reputation - no one said "I want to be boring when I grow up". Please, stop boring people (and probably yourself)
Our results - if no one is listening, then important information people need to know is being missed and causing all sorts of errors, friction, and misunderstandings
The Curse of Knowledge
We think they need to know it as well as we know it. They don't. What is interesting, familiar, and simple to us is usually unfamiliar, difficult, and borderline irrelevant to them.
Because we know stuff we want to show we know stuff and we want them to know the stuff like we do.
To summarise, a research paper called The Curse of Knowledge says, experts forget what it's like not to know. So they assume the audience needs to know every little detail to 'get it'.
Jamming content into our presentations is understandable, but when we realise they only need to understand it a bit better than what they did previously, we can put a piece of communication forward that is useful. light, and easy-to-understand.
Complex = Clever
Over the past few decades large consulting firms have come to dominate our business landscape. They, along with almost everyone in the financial and legal sectors ushered in the view of more information equalling credibility.
i.e. the more complex I make something sound the more intelligent people will think I am.
Daniel Kahneman writes directly about this in Thinking, Fast and Slow, where a mistaken assumption is that complex language means smart.
In reality, confusing people might make you look clever but in reality it makes people crap at their work (which often effects your work). It's a good way to waste a lot of time.
Low Return On Effort
In The Rhythm Effect I build my entire thesis on the idea that we are putting precious resource in the wrong areas. More work does not automatically mean more or better results. Especially in leadership.
Yet, fire hosing people with 46 slides or 15 tabs on a spreadsheet is an instinctual way to show people how much effort we are putting in.
In psychology this is called the Effort Heuristic. We perceive things as more valuable when more effort has been put in. Think about footy commentators talking about teams 'outworking the other side' and how not putting in effort is seen as the worst offense in any professional sport.
We are petrified of being labelled lazy or taking the risk of this perception, so we overload our presentations with gunk.
More than a Start
Simon Sinek shot to fame with his Start With Why TED Talk and book in 2009. Since then we have become familiar with this idea that people join, follow, or buy from us because they connect with the why (meaning, purpose, mission) of a project or body of work, rather than the product or work itself.
This speaks to motivation and inspiration, and the triggers that cause us to engage and buy-in to almost anything. The theory goes that we do not buy an iPhone because of the latest camera, we buy it because Apple is for creative, different people (which is what Apple at least used to stand for).
So, explaining why our message is important and worth listening to is good. Putting deep thought and preparation into this will immediately make any piece of comms better. But, we can go further.
Here are a few tips:
Repetition. Keep relating your insights back to the why. This helps an audience understand and comprehend the relevance and importance of the content itself
Mini-Why's. For each individual point you can explain why they are important. It is better to have three data points in a presentation and spend time explaining why they are important than listing 20x data points with no context or reason why they are being shared
End with Why. Be sure to relate your key points, summary, and closing argument back to 'the why'. This elegantly closes the presentation and reminds people of the point!
I constantly witness people launch into their presentations without even mentioning why their information is important or relevant. If they do, it tends to be short and seen as superfluous.
With practice we can rewire our perception on this, stop boring the life out of each other, and create fun engaging meetings we all crave. I've managed to keep this piece under 1000 words so there is hope for all of us!
