The Art of Manliness - The Power of Brevity in a Noisy World

00:00:00.000 Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast going all the

00:00:11.540 way back to the laconic Spartans the ability to be succinct in one's communications has been to

00:00:15.740 others a sign of strength and a well appreciated gesture but it's a skill that's never been more

00:00:20.160 important than it is today when people are bombarded with information and don't have the

00:00:23.940 bandwidth to digest long and convoluted messages my guest today is an expert in helping people get

00:00:28.780 to the point he's the founder of the brief lab and the author of brief make a bigger impact by saying

00:00:33.380 less his name is joseph mccormick and we begin our conversation with how his work grew out of his

00:00:37.540 development of a communications curriculum for the military special operators we then discuss how

00:00:42.100 being brief is not just about conciseness but first about achieving clarity and the high cost of not

00:00:47.860 shaping our communications with these qualities especially in a world where attention is a scarce

00:00:52.280 resource joe explains why it's actually harder to exercise verbal discipline and it is to use lots

00:00:56.600 of words and four techniques to make your messaging more clear and more concise we then discuss how

00:01:01.760 to apply these techniques to shortening meetings condensing emails and distilling how you describe

00:01:05.420 your role when people ask you what you do and we end our conversation with how to create more meaningful

00:01:09.440 interactions during fluid conversations by actually preparing for these encounters rather than simply

00:01:13.780 trying to wing it after the show's over check out our show notes at aom.is slash brief

00:01:18.000 joe mccormick welcome to the show thanks for having me so you are the founder of an organization

00:01:32.880 called brief lab and also the author of a book called brief and what you do is you basically you

00:01:37.980 train individuals and organizations on how to be more brief and get to the point with their

00:01:43.140 communication and the backstory about how this all started is interesting because what happened was

00:01:48.420 several years ago you got asked by u.s special operations command they came to you and said can

00:01:55.600 you create a curriculum about communication for us so what was going on there what was the problem

00:02:01.060 that u.s special operations command was looking to you to solve well think about when you think about

00:02:07.620 special operations they're elite military people and they're they do everything at a high level

00:02:12.320 and about almost a decade ago i got i got really one of the most important calls if not the most

00:02:17.940 important call my career which was somebody from their command called me and said hey we heard about

00:02:22.980 you and i was at the time ran a marketing agency and we just need to be taught how to be more

00:02:30.440 intentional how to be clear communicators and people expect us to do this but nobody's ever taught us how

00:02:37.120 and what they were trying to do was like fix it by like public speaking which wasn't working and

00:02:42.920 and they do everything at a very high level but nobody ever taught them how to do it and they

00:02:47.300 started realizing like we need help here because in the military they do briefings and those briefings

00:02:53.340 are they're trying to simplify complex things they're doing it with a time urgency and obviously there's

00:02:59.720 a lot at risk and they started seeing like hey this is not going well and and they called me and i and i'm

00:03:04.880 so i'm like sure and that's where the the work started and and they started they actually actually

00:03:10.000 asked me to like you should write a book about this and that's where brief came from i mean how did the

00:03:15.420 needs of u.s special operations command how has that shaped the entire you know your entire i guess

00:03:21.180 philosophy or training that you do with brief i mean when it started it it started as just a unit

00:03:28.980 asking for help so it wasn't like hey we want everybody to it was literally there were individuals

00:03:35.560 and people that were communicating at pretty high levels and what they wanted to be is is consistently

00:03:41.760 clear when they communicated where they were taking out ambiguity there was less misunderstanding that it

00:03:48.420 was easier for them to say or write and the person says i get it and i know what to do

00:03:52.500 and that really was the genesis so i start what i started doing was designing courses and exercise

00:03:58.920 and experiences to teach them to communicate like they shoot with precision so when they go on a range

00:04:06.300 and they shoot they're not thinking well let's see how this goes there's a series of practices that

00:04:10.840 they do to become very very accurate and what they asked me to do was teach us how to do that when we

00:04:15.940 communicate and i had collected you know 20 some years of experiences doing this with executives

00:04:22.540 at harley davidson and mastercard and some big brands and i worked in an agency in marketing and

00:04:27.560 and i was i knew how to to be clear when when you're talking to your employees or your investors or your

00:04:33.180 dealers or your customers and i just translated that into developing a class or course and the response

00:04:39.680 was immediate they were like this is great give us more and that's validated and really drove

00:04:44.840 the book and the brief lab as a business was created on that initial demand from the guys

00:04:49.760 in special operations well let's talk about what are the costs you spend a lot of time in the book

00:04:54.500 talking about this the cost of not being brief with your communications and i mean maybe give us

00:04:59.160 some examples from your decades of work training people how to be brief where where there's the

00:05:05.340 blowhard that's going on and on and it costs them maybe sometimes not a lot but sometimes severely

00:05:10.380 i mean i think one of the things that there's there's a lot of different costs and i think

00:05:14.240 when people start realizing the risks that they run communication for a lot of people is like

00:05:19.600 well you communicate all the time so you should know how to do it well communicating in an environment

00:05:24.840 where there's a lot of information is difficult and that's where i wrote a book called noise and

00:05:28.540 it's all about constant information overload and there's a million things going on and how do you

00:05:33.540 communicate in that environment it's difficult and some of the risks that people run when they're not

00:05:38.420 clear and i define brief as being clear and concise it's not just being concise because if that were the

00:05:43.820 case somebody asked you like hey how was your how was your program and you would go good you know

00:05:47.580 that's not that's too short so brief is is in my definition is clear first and then making it shorter

00:05:54.400 right so some of the impacts that people have is you you when you speak you misdirect people so you say

00:06:01.980 something but they do something else and then you blame them or they tune you out so when you talk

00:06:07.800 the more you talk the less they want to listen that's bad i mean if you're if you're in an environment

00:06:11.680 where you where how you communicate gives you the ability to do what you need to do and people

00:06:16.160 start tuning out or ignoring you it weakens connections it delays decisions so i'll hear from

00:06:22.100 people and i spend you know when i spend time talking to people they'll be like oh i'll think

00:06:26.640 about that let me let me uh let me get back to you oftentimes people do that because they're confused

00:06:31.040 so they'll delay a decision there might be tension you don't get hired if you're interviewing you

00:06:37.580 might not get funding you might not get support so there's a lot of impacts when people are bad at

00:06:42.380 this no yeah you gave some really good examples like the ones that still got to me was like someone

00:06:46.960 and this probably has happened to a lot of people who are in sales like they talk themselves out of

00:06:51.260 a sale right the sale is there and they just keep talking and talking and the guy's like the person's

00:06:55.860 like no i don't want to do this anymore well let's think about it's like it's like fishing you catch

00:07:00.320 the fish and then you pull it in the boat and then you're done well sales people just keep on

00:07:04.440 talking and they're like do you want to come on the boat you know they start and just keep it like

00:07:08.260 the fish swing around and then they just fall off the hook one of the impacts where people sell is

00:07:13.040 over explaining okay somebody asks you a question answer the question but you don't have to give them

00:07:18.860 like you know 7 000 words and we're people are already i think one of the biggest issues in our

00:07:25.060 world today is people are oversaturated you know their their glass is full or nearly full so when

00:07:32.220 you're talking to them one of the things that i focus a lot of our attention on at the brief lab

00:07:36.640 is your audience is drowning so don't make them drown more and if they've got a half an ounce left

00:07:43.880 in the cup that you you can't give them 10 more ounces it just doesn't fit so you have to find ways to

00:07:49.100 to shrink the message down to make it easier for people and and i found that people really appreciate

00:07:54.840 it when you do like a simple example is imagine you had a sales presentation and you had 20 minutes

00:08:00.140 and the person's like well i got it done in 10 nobody's going to be like oh you know i'm going

00:08:05.700 to start complaining because it wasn't 20 they're they get time back in their calendar you've lightened

00:08:10.640 their load it's all that well and so let's talk about the why you need to be brief you've talked

00:08:14.900 about executives everyone's inundated with information just emails are coming in there's

00:08:19.280 social media posts there's blog posts there's so much stuff you're trying to keep track of so there's

00:08:23.960 that aspect being brief just is kind of lightens the load a little bit but you also talk about

00:08:29.380 something that's also changing our culture because of all that information inundation

00:08:33.400 people's ability to focus has also been weakening so you you have to get to the point a lot faster

00:08:38.700 because they've sort of detrained themselves to focus on on things for a long time yeah i mean

00:08:44.920 sustained attention attention spans are shrinking people are paying attention to many many things

00:08:51.480 during the day we live in a 24 7 news cycle it's people talk to talk you have access to information

00:08:57.760 constantly from your phone i mean it is you are in consuming mode all day long and it's a noisy

00:09:04.240 world there's a lot of things competing for your attention so when it comes time for somebody to

00:09:09.080 communicate you have to be able to cut through the clutter because you won't be heard and this is i

00:09:15.340 think this is one of the things that people they think well when i talk people will listen to me it's

00:09:19.800 like no they they can't it's almost like they're losing their hearing i know it sounds like a dramatic

00:09:25.000 analogy but when the world is so noisy it's almost like people start to become deaf or it's harder to

00:09:30.900 hear harder to focus so we have to adapt and i think that adaptation right now is critical for us

00:09:36.640 absolutely critical because you can't assume people's audiences the audience that pays attention

00:09:41.140 that's a that's a false assumption right and also people just become more impatient too i know i have

00:09:45.740 when something takes i mean you think i had this experience the other day like something

00:09:49.820 i wanted something on the internet for i forgot i was trying to access but like it took longer

00:09:54.700 than it should have you know which was like maybe two seconds and i'm like what the heck is going on

00:09:59.440 here and i saw the little spinning wheel in my browser and i was getting frightened i was like man 0.97

00:10:03.440 this is stupid but that's the world that you're living that's the type of person you're communicating 0.76

00:10:07.020 with everyone's like that it's like yeah it's like instant gratification i talked about this in one 1.00

00:10:12.180 of my courses recently about like it's there's almost like a sense of like it's the illusion of

00:10:17.940 immediacy is the term that i use like it's an illusion it's it's it's that everything i can

00:10:22.860 have now well if you look at technology technology has trained us to if i touch my phone it does

00:10:28.880 something immediately well we transfer that to people well if you're not if you're talking and

00:10:34.260 it doesn't make sense to me i'm going to move on to the next thing is that good no but it's what

00:10:39.720 happens people are trained by technology to have immediate response and they expect that the people

00:10:45.780 they talk to too so what i'm teaching people is there's ways to manage people to help people

00:10:50.780 manage their attention this is what we have to help people is how do you talk to people i can't make the

00:10:58.120 world become less noisy or quiet i mean it is inundated with information so the question is how

00:11:04.240 do you communicate in that world and and unfortunately people aren't being taught how to do that that was one

00:11:10.000 of things compelled me to help people focus and to get to the point and and when you start to do that

00:11:15.460 people feel relief because it's like oh got it i know i know what you're saying you're making a

00:11:19.620 recommendation or or whatever and you're helping people and that and that's that's good and that's

00:11:25.460 where that's i think that's where the relief comes from comes from why is this hard to be brief like

00:11:29.800 why people have a hard time with this which is kind of counterintuitive you think you know saying

00:11:33.360 fewer words would be easier but actually saying more is a lot easier it's a lot easier and there's

00:11:40.160 a lot there's a number of reasons why if you think about the way people communicate there's an impulse

00:11:44.620 when people communicate the impulse is you start talking and you'll figure out where you're going

00:11:48.860 imagine if you did that when you're driving i don't know where i'm going but i'll figure it out

00:11:52.880 you're all over the road so there's there's a number of reasons i call it like there there's like

00:11:57.580 seven capital sins people are their cowardice is one they're afraid if i just tell you like

00:12:03.560 you know something very direct i i so i'm gonna i'm gonna beat around the bush or confidence people

00:12:09.440 are really smart and they're super confident they can't stop talking another one is callousness

00:12:14.520 they're they're not sensitive to other people they get comfortable they're just confused themselves

00:12:19.280 so they they can just kind of talk out loud and they're like i don't even understand it so if i

00:12:23.500 keep on talking it'll make sense and it doesn't it makes less sense people are some people are just

00:12:27.740 complicated they don't know how to be simple and i think the last thing is careless so there's a lot

00:12:33.780 of different reasons why people struggle with it but the thing about it being brief is it's not just

00:12:38.240 about being concise it's first and foremost being clear so what you say makes sense to people and it

00:12:45.780 is the the i i kind of equate it to like comedy comedy is all about being funny and if i mean brief

00:12:52.860 isn't about being concise it's about being clear comedy is about being funny so those things are

00:12:57.760 intentional practices i do certain things and when i do it's clear and when i don't it's confusing

00:13:03.960 and that's really what's at play so i mean it sounds like the reason why a lot of people can't be brief

00:13:10.160 is that a lot of times they just don't even know what they're going to say or what they're what they

00:13:13.240 want to say they don't do any prep beforehand and it ends up they just it's a word vomit basically

00:13:19.200 whenever they do try to they try to figure it out on the fly and that's just that's never going to

00:13:22.700 work well people are busy so they're one of the excuses why don't have time to prepare well okay

00:13:27.240 that imagine a comedian doing that i don't have time to prove my comedy so i'll see what happens

00:13:31.460 it's not gonna be funny so in the world of being clear preparation is really important and people

00:13:37.520 don't take enough time to prepare that that's one really really big thing the other thing is just

00:13:42.780 trimming you know if you've got to send an email and the emails you know let's say three paragraphs

00:13:48.100 long and could you make it two if you just took a few more minutes can you cut it down a little bit

00:13:53.740 can you give me some bullet points you know break it up a bit i don't think people think about the

00:13:59.080 damage that they do the noise that they create for other people when they're not being clear and concise

00:14:04.280 if you're not being brief this is my conclusion you are creating noise for people

00:14:08.980 meetings updates recommendations pitches progress reports you name it if you're not preparing it

00:14:18.380 it's probably going to sound noisy and staticky well let's talk about some techniques that you train

00:14:23.800 organizations on how to be more brief and there's four techniques you talk about in the book the first

00:14:29.900 one is map it this is very military right you see the military origin there so what does map it look

00:14:35.220 like what are you doing in that with this technique i mean if you think about like if you think about

00:14:39.380 what you learn in school like creating an outline i learned this technique years ago called mind

00:14:44.020 mapping and mind mapping is visual outlining and it's just draw the pictures of what you're going

00:14:48.980 to say on a page i think bubbles on a page and i've i've developed kind of map out your you know

00:14:53.900 what's your main idea put that in the middle what are some support ideas put those in kind of bubbles

00:14:58.840 around that main idea and then what are support ideas around those ideas and it's like it's creating an

00:15:03.760 outline what outlines do it's it's so interesting when i when we teach courses people like i'm like

00:15:10.340 what was the difference the difference like they say to me when you map it out it becomes

00:15:14.300 structured organized what happens with communications it's disorganized but when it's disorganized my

00:15:21.140 brain has got to reorganize that well people can't do that because their brains are saturated so they

00:15:25.200 don't so it's confusing so when you map it out you create an order it's like uh it's things become

00:15:30.360 easier to follow because they're structured so that's yeah that's that's the first one and also

00:15:34.960 when you map it out as well whether you're doing a mind map or you know sort of the typical outline

00:15:39.780 you learned in school that i i still outline like when i write an article i still outline right like

00:15:46.440 one two and then like sub points a b c like the other thing that it does it allows you to like cut

00:15:54.780 information you're able to see well do i really need this point probably not yeah i mean the thing that you

00:15:59.700 when you do an outline it's in a traditional outline which is super interesting is mind mapping

00:16:04.940 is just a visual version of that it's they're not any different is when you start if you think of

00:16:09.660 like point one sub point a then bullet like you kind of but you start to see layers of detail

00:16:15.240 and i i have this construct right here is like level one detail is the most essential information

00:16:20.960 right so that's okay that in an outline level one how many level one points i need to make

00:16:25.580 level two would be like mid-level detail level three is like full documentation right so i would

00:16:30.560 describe like level one is like the trailer and level three is like the movie when you create that

00:16:35.600 level of detail what you help people do is not get hung up on stuff that's the minutiae and outlines

00:16:41.400 force you to do that it's like just what you said right it's like all right do i really need to say

00:16:45.380 that no okay i'll just cut that or no i really need to say that that's now that's essential

00:16:50.660 information and that's what gets people to clarity is what's moving like essential from

00:16:55.700 inessential and the other thing that's useful about outline i use when i when i give like a

00:16:59.040 presentation or something you can outline and you can fill in as much minutiae as you want right

00:17:03.300 and let's say time doesn't allow for some of this stuff well you still have your main points you know

00:17:08.520 you can hit one two three and you'll have a great presentation it allows you to be flexible and adapt as

00:17:13.580 well that's precisely right if you think of it like if i've got five important things to say

00:17:18.980 and i say those five things i'm good if the person has more time i can i can say more but i've hit

00:17:24.520 those five key things and that is exactly what people need to be taught how to do which is say

00:17:32.420 the most important things so the people get it it makes sense to them and then if there's more time

00:17:39.100 you can go deeper but you're not you don't defer you're like you don't defer default rather to the long

00:17:44.540 version you're like i can explain it in a minute i can explain it 10 minutes i can explain it in an

00:17:49.740 hour what do you have and then that control gives people a comfort and confidence and i've seen this

00:17:56.180 with the people that we work with and it's really really something makes makes it so much easier for

00:18:02.480 the audience at the end of the day all right so outline your middle school teacher was on to

00:18:06.440 something when she was teaching you outlines yeah yeah that's exactly i said i'm the ghost of your

00:18:11.120 eighth grade english teacher right well the another technique you encourage or teach people

00:18:17.160 how to be more brief is tell it which is using stories so how do people when they typically explain

00:18:22.520 something if they're not using storytelling what are they doing usually and why is storytelling better

00:18:27.240 they're talking theoretically so you know they're like well you know i let's say that they're

00:18:33.120 describing their business let's say that they they um they own a hardware store or like or they do

00:18:38.100 it support tech support or something they speak theoretically you know we are a provider of cloud

00:18:43.740 solutions for the internet that are in the audience is like i think i understand what you're saying but

00:18:49.720 but then there's this moment like let me give you an example well what that does to people that are

00:18:54.300 their minds are all over the place is it helps like ground the the person for a moment like i've got an

00:19:00.420 example of you know what i do tell them tell me a story illustrate it give me an analogy anything to help

00:19:07.500 paint a picture it helps people so much because they have they're trying to do that themselves but

00:19:14.380 you just do it for them and and that's just i've seen this so many times i actually ironically i'm

00:19:20.400 gonna give you a story so i would we teach people how to do briefings you know this short briefings in

00:19:25.140 these units within special operations and i'll have people come up like what do you guys do and then

00:19:30.340 they'll stand in our courses and they'll be like i do blah blah blah and then you're listening you're

00:19:34.220 like i think i understand and then i'm like why don't you give me an example and it's amazing

00:19:38.960 when they give an example how much clearer it gets okay i was on a deployment and we were in this

00:19:44.980 country and then i went here and then i talked to this guy and then we did you just illustrated in

00:19:49.440 that story in 30 seconds what you guys do if you if you prefer like the theoretical version or the

00:19:55.260 practical with the story people always prefer the story so give them a story right yeah people and

00:19:59.280 people remember stories more than like a list of facts it is incredible like it's like the trojan

00:20:05.220 i i liken storytelling to like the trojan horse strategy of communicating you can pack so many

00:20:10.760 details in a story and once you give them the story the memory recall for the details is crazy

00:20:17.300 it's crazy and it's so simple but you got to prepare it you can't just most people can't do that on

00:20:23.220 the fly you have to think in advance okay if i'm going to do a sales presentation or

00:20:27.020 i'm going to a job interview you got to start thinking about some examples or stories

00:20:31.420 and those things can really really help you well yeah i learned this in law school so you know i took

00:20:37.840 a legal writing class you have to and one of the things you have to do you have to write a brief

00:20:41.960 and when you start your brief there's like a statement of facts and you seem like oh it's a

00:20:45.980 statement of facts just list like x happened blah blah blah but actually what you had to do is you

00:20:50.360 had to spin those facts into a really like readable narrative because the idea was you want the

00:20:56.700 judge to like not just kind of glaze over this list of facts you want them to be engaged and you

00:21:02.420 also be the storytelling you can kind of i don't want to say manipulate but you can kind of you can

00:21:06.640 you can frame the story in a way so it's you know beneficial for your client or whatever but yeah it's

00:21:10.660 all it all comes back to storytelling well it's what's interesting is magicians do this when they do

00:21:16.320 magic many of them are telling you a story and the brain sort of locks onto the story and you start

00:21:22.380 listening to the story and the pieces start connecting and they they in this case magicians

00:21:27.640 they misdirect your attention to something else so you don't see the magic but but the same thing as

00:21:32.900 you're doing this with a judge the judges you start to you're helping manage their focus

00:21:38.320 just connecting the dots and it is i'll tell people like if you if you can use an illustration or an

00:21:46.660 example you know do it because people prefer it you know always give it give the audience what you

00:21:51.600 want and i think one of the things people can do is just like let me give you an example and just

00:21:55.760 give them one it's it's so powerful storytelling is i it's incredibly powerful we're gonna take a quick

00:22:02.320 break for your words from our sponsors and now back to the show so another technique or tactic is

00:22:09.120 something you call talk tracks and this is talk t-a-l-c what's this about what are you trying to do with

00:22:14.960 this i just formed a little simple acronym which is you know it stands for it stands for talk

00:22:19.620 active listen converse so the idea is when people communicate one of the biggest mistakes that they

00:22:24.500 do is they the analogy i use is the saying rather is it's more like tennis and less like golf when

00:22:30.600 people talk they just talk at you and they just kind of like pound the ball down the fairway and

00:22:35.720 communication is is i say something and then i listen to your response and then we converse and we

00:22:40.820 go back and forth it's getting the audience getting the person you're talking to into a conversation

00:22:45.540 and in creating this rhythm where i say something and you say something it's actually it's exactly

00:22:50.060 what we're doing right now and it just it's those pieces of a person says something i actively listen

00:22:56.060 then i comment i converse back forth back forth at work and also personally you create balance in

00:23:01.980 conversations it's it's almost like it's like a game changer really and how does how does that help

00:23:06.820 structure your conversations for brevity i mean you think about like i'm talking to a person

00:23:14.860 and i'm listening to how they're responding to me is gauging if they're hearing anything at all

00:23:21.140 you know it's it's you you assume that person people hear you but how do you know and the answer is

00:23:28.280 by the response well if you didn't give me a chance to respond then you don't know if they heard you

00:23:33.000 so i think in in basic conversations you know let's say that you're you're going to your boss

00:23:38.680 and you're making a recommendation like hey boss uh you got a few minutes and the body boss like sure

00:23:42.760 and you walk in your boss's office and you're like hey uh and then you just start talking about all

00:23:47.880 these things you're going to do and your boss doesn't have at some point your boss might just

00:23:52.540 like all right i don't know what this person's talking about like and then they can't you got to

00:23:56.560 stop it break it up a bit say a few things stop see what your boss says it's like playing tennis

00:24:01.320 say something she says something back then you say something and then you get a conversation and

00:24:06.280 you're actually on the same page having the same conversation and that people miss that more than

00:24:11.500 they hit it all right so we talked about map it so use an outline tell it use stories when possible

00:24:17.040 or actually just use stories all the time anything can be spun into a story talk it so use talk tracks

00:24:21.960 so pay attention to your audience there get feedback you know look and listen for their feedback what

00:24:25.880 you're saying and then the final one is show it and this is using visuals this can get tricky

00:24:31.000 though because a lot of people they've all heard they've all experienced death by powerpoint right

00:24:35.220 where you they're in some presentation and there's like a visual slide for like every sentence the

00:24:39.580 person is saying so how do you use visuals in a way that attract attention and doesn't cause

00:24:45.860 people to you know their eyes to glaze over and stop paying attention you just you just have to

00:24:51.320 think and sometimes there you can can i draw a picture do i have a whiteboard do i have a flip

00:24:56.120 chart can i draw a diagram you know there's a like you know there's a book about how to illustrate

00:25:01.520 stuff back of the napkin kind of stuff sometimes even going back to the story like i can verbally

00:25:06.580 describe it just is there any any is there a picture a picture's worth a thousand words so if i'm

00:25:11.260 if i'm doing a powerpoint presentation i got a couple slides give me a big image a prominent image you

00:25:16.480 know not not just don't try to jam a million bullet points on a page is there is there some visual that

00:25:22.440 can carry the day in your presentation so just these are just anything you can do to kind of help

00:25:27.400 the audience see it is the point well that's a good point don't the bullet yeah the bullet points

00:25:32.040 like don't put your outline of your speech on the powerpoint slide and like you push the button and

00:25:37.620 like the thing you're saying like shows up on you know slides into the flies into the screen like that

00:25:42.560 it's like what when that happens like why why are you even talking i can just read this yeah i mean i

00:25:47.560 think when you look at like when you look at this this whole thing about being brief and the book

00:25:52.480 brief and you know this business that teaching people how to communicate certainly presentations

00:25:57.640 are a moment but that really doesn't take up a lot there's a lot of stuff written on that actually

00:26:01.500 like how to do a ted talk and i i think what people struggle with a lot more than that because that

00:26:06.080 happens kind of few and far between unless you're like obviously in the presentation business

00:26:09.640 there's a number of other moments that people just struggle with that they don't even think about

00:26:14.320 you know like the drive-by i walk by my boss's office or i pick up the phone or i'm sending

00:26:19.440 somebody an email or i'm i'm in a program or project i'm making a recommendation i'm running

00:26:24.960 a meeting meetings are a big one you know where it's not clear it's really not brief they're long

00:26:30.980 they're noisy and you know that one for people they just they're like well this is i guess what we do

00:26:37.040 you know that's why people love the movie office space you know they feel like sense of you know

00:26:41.940 meeting the bobs you know it's like there there are moments where like yeah presentations are one

00:26:46.460 of them but there's a lot more other moments where people can prepare like all right i'm gonna i'm gonna

00:26:50.360 run a meeting what's the meeting about who's coming why are we here what are we going to talk about like

00:26:58.540 the preparing agenda in advance it's amazing how few people send agendas before meetings and they

00:27:06.440 expect the meeting to have be on time be clear get something done it's insane you know so that's

00:27:12.560 that's a new one that i'm trying to tackle which is how do you how do you run a meeting you're running

00:27:16.720 them on zoom you know are you how are you preparing for it i'm just making sure people show up

00:27:22.180 so those are other areas where people need to be clear and concise and you know meetings well

00:27:28.260 yeah let's talk i mean i like to spend you know the the rest of this conversation talking about

00:27:32.120 specific instances where we can apply these principles we've been talking about and meetings

00:27:36.940 is one of them i mean everyone hates meetings you have a whole section of the book on how to make

00:27:40.400 meetings briefer and like as you just said like the number one thing you do is just like have an

00:27:44.320 agenda most people when they have a meeting there's no agenda or if there is an agenda it's very vague

00:27:49.140 it's like well we're just gonna do a status update and it's like you're there for 45 minutes while

00:27:55.080 everyone goes around the room saying what's going on and that's just a complete that's a complete waste

00:27:59.800 everyone's time because that could have been exchanged via an email or a document

00:28:03.780 and just that wasn't even there was like no planning there so you just wasted 45 minutes of everyone's

00:28:09.080 time i it's you know when you think about like if you got a meeting invitation and then you got a

00:28:15.000 notification that was canceled what would be the first your first emotional response yes oh that's so

00:28:21.600 great right you're like this is great i just got canceled like think about how bad it is that the

00:28:26.740 first response is that's like okay and then compare it to like a bunch of your friends invite

00:28:31.840 you out to a bar and they canceled you're like oh man i gotta cancel that thing that's terrible

00:28:35.940 so how would you make a meeting useful well number one is if it could be an email don't have it

00:28:42.300 if you can be in the position of authority don't have it or if you are gonna if it's a necessity

00:28:47.440 prepare an agenda and i i likened uh um meetings to having like a like a dinner party people over your

00:28:54.100 house all right so who are you inviting what kind of food are you serving when does it start

00:28:59.940 when do you have you know cocktails when when does dinner come on is there dessert like what's the

00:29:05.020 like the flow take five minutes ten minutes kind of write out the agenda like okay this is what the

00:29:10.800 meeting's about this is why we're a couple this these are this at the end of the meeting how will

00:29:15.400 you know what's successful could you have a minimal level success like i just led a meeting here

00:29:20.680 at our offices in north carolina with a bunch of colonels it was a room full of it was 10 colonels

00:29:26.000 and they asked me to run this meeting it was a pretty intense meeting it was above it was an

00:29:30.160 entire morning and i was asked by somebody special operations to run this meeting and the the topic

00:29:36.880 was pretty intensive and i had a lot of very very high-ranking people in the room i spent time

00:29:42.320 preparing an agenda and i sent the the guy that was the meeting owner my agenda this is who's coming

00:29:48.420 this is what we're going to talk about these are the agenda topics and at the end of the meeting if

00:29:52.260 the meeting doesn't go where we want it to go what's the minimal level of success in this case

00:29:57.180 we had we would identify 10 a list of 10 things and i did that and it was so funny because i bumped

00:30:03.960 into a guy that was in the meeting he's like man that was really great like that was actually

00:30:08.480 productive we got stuff done well think about the question you asked me earlier but what's the risk

00:30:12.440 if you're not brief you're not clear and concise if you run a bad meeting people don't trust you

00:30:16.220 they don't want to go to your meeting nothing gets done morale saying i mean there's a lot of

00:30:19.540 risks with bad meetings and it's something that people gotta fix with meetings my philosophy has

00:30:24.660 always been like you go to a meeting with like specific problems you're trying to solve that

00:30:29.500 can't be solved via email if you try to do it email via email would take like 50 or 60 or 70 emails

00:30:35.980 like that's dumb that just takes every that's you know you're you're splitting everyone's attention 0.59

00:30:40.520 you're sucking everyone's bandwidth instead just get everyone in the room for 20 minutes and say 0.97

00:30:44.360 we're going to talk about x problem and the goal is to have an action point on how to solve this

00:30:49.900 problem in the meeting and that's it direct you have to tell everyone that so everyone comes in with

00:30:54.040 those ideas like you know try to solve this problem and you can usually crank it out or get

00:30:58.440 get things resolved 15 20 minutes instead of you know belaboring it through tons of back and forth

00:31:03.840 emails or like a long email or a long meeting where there is no set agenda to solve this particular

00:31:09.500 problem yeah i mean think about like i talk a lot about getting to the point and this is what

00:31:15.140 people struggle to in meetings is in 10 words or less tell me what the objective of the meeting is

00:31:21.340 what is the point of the meeting that is hard for people to do because they're like well we want to

00:31:27.760 talk about things it's like okay but but what is the objective of the meeting what are you trying to

00:31:32.360 do with these people in this amount of time is if that's not clear it's hard to be clear because you

00:31:39.180 don't accidentally land on the point that's why people go in down rabbit holes and they get distracted

00:31:44.120 then people dominate the agenda and it's it's it becomes mayhem it's just mayhem so what i'll tell

00:31:50.060 people is sit down and write out in 10 words or less what is the objective of the meeting do that

00:31:55.900 to identify the three causes of you know retention in the company or to finalize the 2021 budget or

00:32:03.800 be very specific and then why do we need to do this right now and to your point it's like you're

00:32:10.460 absolutely right meetings are for for discussion primarily for discussion and decision not for

00:32:15.880 information dissemination so if you're just sharing information a meeting there are better ways to do

00:32:19.940 that you can use slack you could use email you can do a pre-read but when we come together

00:32:25.540 we talk and we make decisions and that for people love that if you if you do that i've i've seen the

00:32:31.800 before and after is is people are so encouraged well let's talk about emails because people are

00:32:37.680 just inundated with emails executives are inundated with emails how can you write an email in a way so

00:32:42.380 that people like the person you send email actually take action on it and not just put into the trash can

00:32:48.360 or spam okay so the first thing is what's the point of the email like don't underestimate the

00:32:52.400 importance of the subject line so that's the first thing i'm going to look at is what's the point of

00:32:56.140 the email so in that subject line what are we talking about people generally misuse that like it's

00:33:01.000 very generic follow-up no thank you the second thing is what's the call to action what do you want

00:33:06.320 me to do is this for my response is it for my action like what do you want me to do do answer yes

00:33:13.440 no give me a response by like people are very they have to be clear about the point of the email and what

00:33:18.260 you want me to do with it and if you're just disseminating information you don't want them

00:33:22.500 to do anything then tell them i don't this is purely acronym fysa for your situational awareness

00:33:28.040 you don't need to do anything you just need to know that's fine just tell me for your is this for

00:33:32.700 your action do i want your feedback generally speaking there's like for your awareness for your

00:33:38.640 feedback for your decision tell me what do you want me to do and people don't do that and it's very

00:33:43.640 very hard to respond to them and then you just delete them or just ignore them all right so yeah

00:33:48.840 like don't bury the lead in your emails oh yeah killer don't bury your lead tell me what the point

00:33:53.580 of the email is and put some bullet points and write them try to make them shorter but write them

00:33:59.140 like you would want to read them a big block of text did i take time to prepare it before i hit send

00:34:05.960 ask myself if i'm receiving this email is it easy to know what the email is about and how to respond

00:34:12.880 if the answer is yes send it if the answer is no don't send it because it's just noise for somebody

00:34:18.320 i get emails from people that are like a lot of us marketing campaigns but i'm like you guys are in

00:34:25.140 marketing and you're writing emails that are so easy to delete they're so easy to delete because you

00:34:31.200 don't it's just like no it's it's so and emails another is is one another one that people struggle

00:34:37.140 with is role definition what do you do it's a question that people get all the time that's not

00:34:42.720 it's either too brief like i file papers and they think that's funny or they give you the long

00:34:47.240 version so like explaining what your elevator speech is you know that and and there's there's a simple

00:34:55.140 way of fixing that like tell people first what your title is i am you know i'm the managing director

00:35:01.440 and founder of the brief lab and and then the next thing is what are you responsible for i'm

00:35:05.360 responsible for for setting the direction of the company and writing books and recording my podcast

00:35:09.660 then give them a couple little examples what you do and then an end you know that's it short sweet

00:35:16.880 what is your role definition of people like anybody who works at a company should have this down to 30

00:35:23.660 seconds what's my title what am i responsible for what are some of the things i do and what's the

00:35:28.880 impact i have that's it short sweet and you have to prepare it you can't do it on the fly you have to

00:35:32.600 prepare that's that's another area that's a recurring theme a brief brief conversation brief

00:35:37.620 communication requires preparation it requires like you have to you actually have to kind of spend a

00:35:41.600 lot of time to be brief which is sort of counterintuitive you know why this is and it's really

00:35:47.180 it seems so obvious like people are like yeah you got to be brief you got to be clear you got to be

00:35:52.380 concise but it takes time and here's the thing i'm taking time to make it easier for you that's the

00:36:00.080 point i'll spend a half hour preparing a five minute update i had a conversation with a guy

00:36:07.540 i don't i don't know what administration it was if it was the current administration or president or

00:36:13.540 the prior president he prepared 40 hours for a five minute briefing 40 hours i'd done work with his

00:36:21.840 organization 40 hours for five minute briefing do we spend five minutes preparing enough before we give

00:36:27.500 our boss an update no we just go in there how's how's your day good what's going on you start

00:36:32.320 talking preparation is everything that's what that's what professionals do clear communicators prepare

00:36:38.000 amateurs don't another sort of situation that you go into specifics about in the book and how to

00:36:45.560 how you brevity can be useful is delivering good news but also delivering bad news so how can sane

00:36:52.840 saying less actually make good news more impactful and bad news less impactful so one of the things

00:37:00.940 that i just i i saw this once and it was really amazing i was participating at a at a national marketing

00:37:07.740 summit for harley davidson and they asked me to speak and they did something called a shout out i might

00:37:12.900 i might be getting the name wrong but it was a shout out so it was all the all the marketing people for the

00:37:17.020 whole company and what they would do is really really cool is between like agenda items in this

00:37:23.420 conference they would do a shout out so it would imagine like hey my name is bob and i want to do a

00:37:28.260 shout out to sally okay and then the room would get quiet and then bob would tell the entire organization

00:37:33.780 why sally needed public recognition the longer that was the less effective it was the shorter and more 1.00

00:37:41.480 concise and clear the more impactful it was because people could hear more and less say what it is that

00:37:48.260 she did and why it was so impactful but don't give a speech and i saw that i'm like yeah good news

00:37:53.340 just say it your impact on this was singular and you did this and this bam done same thing for bad news

00:38:00.600 you got to fire somebody you got to give somebody a performance review doesn't mean you need to be a

00:38:06.560 blunt object but you need to make it shorter because you wouldn't want it to be longer either

00:38:11.080 you know imagine like somebody calls you in their office and like they're like you know hey uh you

00:38:16.740 know carlos you got a minute i need to talk to you about something and then it turns out to 15 minutes

00:38:21.100 where the person's just giving them going on and on and on and on no that's not you wouldn't want

00:38:26.640 that so don't do that to somebody else make it shorter prepare it it's like here's the deal carlos

00:38:31.380 you need to know about this because it's important you don't show up to work enough you know you need to

00:38:35.920 show up to the meeting five minutes early instead of two minutes late or whatever whatever the issue

00:38:39.900 is but i'm telling you this because i want you to be better and somebody's got to tell you and i just

00:38:45.120 told you so i need you to fix it and let's talk about it in a week and see how you're making it

00:38:49.080 better that's all and then it's like all right done versus you know being the hammer so both of

00:38:55.100 those there's two sides of the same coin really yeah i know with bad news i think i have the tendency

00:38:59.900 i think a lot of people have the tendency when you're delivering bad news you think well if i just say

00:39:03.020 more to like make people feel better right because you're just like but actually i think a lot of

00:39:08.280 times you just you're talking to make yourself feel better this is like the person pulling the

00:39:13.220 bandit off saying if if i pull it off really slow it's not going to hurt as much and you're like

00:39:18.980 wait i just did it and it's really really painful but no it's like you when i counsel people when you

00:39:24.640 when you're in this in this moment of dealing bad news is you first have to think about it before

00:39:29.060 you do it and then you have to think about what you're going to say you can't be deciding that in

00:39:33.460 the moment because what happens is that people don't know what they're going to say and then

00:39:37.600 they're fumbling over it and it makes it longer so what i would recommend to people is all right

00:39:41.780 let's say that you have to give somebody i mean this is an extreme example of bad news but let's

00:39:46.620 say you have to somebody's going to fire somebody these are conversations by the way that people

00:39:50.780 remember 20 years later so it you should prepare for it as the deliverer of the bad news what i always

00:39:57.020 tell people is first ask the person hey do you have a minute and then set the condition what i'm

00:40:02.780 going to tell you is difficult it's hard for me to say so the person's it's almost like you're

00:40:08.180 tightening your stomach before you get punched so the person knows bad news is coming and then you

00:40:12.960 might say to a person i don't need you to respond right now i just need you to hear what i'm going to

00:40:16.400 say so then the person knows that you're really not inviting them into a conversation you're just

00:40:21.300 telling them the bad news and then you write it out but you've said this before you've practiced

00:40:26.220 to saying this so you're not saying it because there's a lot of power and then you tell them the

00:40:30.580 bad news you're like we are cutting your position from the organization effective immediately the

00:40:35.940 reason why is because the company's not making enough money and i'm really sorry to do this to

00:40:39.900 you but today's gonna be your last day and i'll give you some more information on this in the next

00:40:44.140 you know hour in terms of a pack whatever and you prepare it but it's short sweet empathetic

00:40:50.160 and it just makes it better and i don't want to deliver that either but somebody's but preparation

00:40:55.680 i think again to your point earlier is is absolutely critical and something you bring up in the book too

00:41:00.960 is that a lot of conversation or communication that happens in a workplace is fluid it's not

00:41:05.880 happening via email it could be happening in like around the water cooler or you're walking just sort

00:41:11.160 of in the hallway and passing and even in those moments like you you make the case that you should be

00:41:15.780 prepared to be brief in those conversations if you if you only have someone for like two minutes you

00:41:20.540 have to be ready to give them a pitch or say something that's first clear and then concise

00:41:25.620 yeah i mean i what i worked i've worked in a lot of different environments but you're always people

00:41:31.140 are bumping into each other and they're checking in they're seeing what's going on and and you have

00:41:36.080 to be ready you know you you so you i would always be thinking like if my customer called me what would

00:41:41.660 i say if my boss stopped me in the hallway what would i say if i you know so these are moments that

00:41:48.240 are that i know are going to come what do i have for them i want to give them a little nugget

00:41:53.780 like hey making a lot of progress on that project or i need your help with some research just be ready

00:41:59.740 for that if the phone rang how would you you know what would you say i think people they're there

00:42:05.580 they just wait for formal settings to do that but business is a lot of like a lot of these

00:42:09.280 it's very informal it's very fluid and being ready for that just makes you more valuable to

00:42:14.940 a person like all right this person's like johnny the spot every time i bump into them they've got

00:42:18.720 something for me whether it's good news or bad news or an update they're ready with something

00:42:22.580 and as i was reading this book i mean this book is primarily directed towards work life but this

00:42:28.560 stuff can also be applied to your personal life i was thinking you know communication with your kids

00:42:32.400 right like your kids are inundated with information their attention span is minuscule so you have to

00:42:38.880 be concise with them if you want them to to listen you have to we're not concise you have to be brief

00:42:43.020 clear and concise with them in order to to communicate with them i mean it's if you think about being a

00:42:48.100 parent i mean it's like giving instructions to kids you know doing your homework being clear

00:42:53.680 conversations on the dinner table i mean the quality of that stuff goes a long way and we just talk past

00:42:58.960 each other this book brief is really about the quality of the communication it's clarity it's how

00:43:05.880 intentional i don't say things to say them i'm thoughtful when i communicate and obviously that's

00:43:11.660 the home family is the most you know the personal life is conversations i have with people on the phone

00:43:16.960 am i listening to them you know how was your day you know and being able to answer that in a thoughtful

00:43:22.780 way telling kids you know things that that they need to hear that are heartfelt you know thanking people

00:43:30.420 those those those things go in an enormous way and i think i think one of the things i'm happy that

00:43:36.100 you said this outside of work because it's not all about my job it's like what is the quality of my

00:43:39.840 communication with people that i care about right and then again even then it requires preparation i

00:43:44.260 think we have this idea that communication in our personal life it just sort of in order for it to be

00:43:49.380 authentic it has to just sort of spring up naturally without thinking about it just happens on the fly

00:43:55.120 but really i mean my most meaningful conversations have been where i've thought about what i was going

00:44:00.260 to say before i talked to the person you know like something that my i knows my wife does and i'm

00:44:05.400 really impressed that she does this kate is you know we're about to go have you know we're going

00:44:09.620 to see some friends you haven't seen in a while like she'll make like a list the things she wants

00:44:13.460 to check in on with those people and it's great because like the conversations it's a lot more

00:44:18.960 meaningful and and i i enjoy those conversations more when there's sort of a structure outline to it

00:44:24.400 you know you know that the doing things like your your wife is doing is requires people to have time 0.71

00:44:32.180 during the day to stop and to think and be thoughtful so those people people like that you

00:44:38.600 want to be around because they're thinking about you before they even start talking to you in the

00:44:43.640 book noise that i just wrote this just came out about a year ago one of the things that i really

00:44:48.040 recommend that people do is they schedule quiet time every day because we're so our lives are so busy

00:44:53.720 and we're jumping from zoom call to zoom call and it's just we're living in this crazy world and it's

00:44:58.000 like there's no time and to lower the noise we have to have quiet and in those moments of quiet we can

00:45:03.440 think okay what are the things i want to check in and it's it has almost a two-fold benefit it helps

00:45:10.460 me and my brain lower the volume but it helps me become thoughtful and who doesn't want to be around

00:45:16.780 a person that's thoughtful i'm thinking about other people about what matters to them and when i do that

00:45:22.260 i'm lowering the noise for them so but it only comes from quiet you need you need some time of

00:45:27.000 quiet that we can prepare where i'm sure she's going to spend a few minutes to do that doing it 0.99

00:45:31.060 on the fly is difficult well joe this has been a great conversation where can people go to learn

00:45:35.240 more about the book and the rest of your work so the the easiest place to go to is thebrieflab.com

00:45:41.020 so it's t-h-e-b-r-i-e-f-l-a-b.com and we have resources we have a podcast we've got you know

00:45:49.420 plenty of tools like people can download the book is available on amazon there's a lot of places book

00:45:54.680 brief also the book noise and yeah that'd be the easiest place for people to go fantastic well

00:45:59.760 joe mccormick thanks for your time it's been a pleasure pleasure is mine my guest today was

00:46:03.760 joseph mccormick he's the author of the book brief it's available on amazon.com and bookstores

00:46:07.660 everywhere you can find out more information about his work at his website thebrieflab.com

00:46:11.940 also check out our show notes at aom.is slash brief you can find links to resources where you

00:46:16.320 delve deeper into this topic well that wraps up another edition of the aom podcast check

00:46:27.820 out our website at art of manliness.com where you find our podcast archives well as thousands

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00:47:04.020 what you've heard into action

00:47:05.460 you

The Art of Manliness - December 07, 2020

The Power of Brevity in a Noisy World

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