Joe McCormack thinks everything would be better if people could just get to the point. As the author of Brief and founder of the Sheffield Company, a marketing firm that focuses on helping clients craft concise messaging, he’s observed first hand how endless meetings, data dumps, and wordy emails are becoming the bane of business.
McCormack tells Fast Company this pain point comes from “the Four Is” a layered mix of irritants and impatience that add up to one permanent pain point:
- Information Inundation: Every day the average American consumes 34GB of contentand checks their phone up to 150 times. Worker bees can get over 300 emails a week.
- Inattention: We only truly focus for six hours per week. That’s because attention spans are shrinking. We’re down from 12 seconds in 2000 to eight seconds today.
- Impatience: McCormack’s Brief Lab discovered that nearly three quarters of professionals tune out of presentations within the first minute, stop reading an email after 30 seconds, and stop listening to colleagues after 15 seconds --all because they didn’t get to the point quickly.
- Interruption: The average worker is interrupted around 60 times per day and doesn’t get back on task 40% of the time.
With all this in play says McCormack, “Brevity is not a nice to have, it’s a need to have.” He believes it’s just bad manners to go long, just like it’s rude to be late.
Joe McCormack
“I could talk about being brief all day long,” McCormack deadpans. Instead, he boils it down to “the elusive 600.” People have a natural mental capacity to process 750 words a minute, McCormack explains, but we only speak at a rate of 150 words per minute. “If you do the math, brevity is about managing people's attention” as the spare 600 words rattle their focus.
Here are McCormack’s pointers on the fine art of getting to the point.
1. DON'T OVER-EXPLAIN
Everyone could use more preparation and self-editing. “Put yourself in the shoes of the person you are communicating with. Ask yourself: is there too much information they don’t need to know?” he says.
Whether sharing bad news or negative feedback, or simply sharing a new idea that you’ve fallen in love with, McCormack says take yourself out of it. “Out of empathy and respect for the other person, don’t over-explain.”
2. USE THE 5 WS
McCormack’s a fan of the journalistic approach to narrative. Keeping the who, what, where, when, and why top of mind can convert even the most complex ideas into an intriguing story for an audience.
3. REPLACE WORDS WITH IMAGES
You don’t need to be Picasso to use pictures to make a compelling point. McCormack says he recently saw an executive team describe a five-year vision by drawing stick figure pictures. “There’s a sense of vulnerability because you want people to understand,” he says, which makes a presentation more memorable. Videos and photographs work, too. “Do a little research on representative images online. It doesn’t have to be perfect, just interesting and connected to the topic.”
4. HARNESS THE POWER OF THE PAUSE
Especially in interviews or annual reviews, McCormack calls on the power of the pause. “They are strong weapon for brevity because it shows discipline, and doesn’t allow you to leak your nervousness and say things you didn’t intend.” Feel uncomfortable with silence? McCormack suggests looking at it this way: “It gives the person a chance to process what you just said.”
5. MAP YOUR COMMUNICATION
Speak in headlines and use a mind map, he advises. Before you press send, make a visual outline of your communication. Have the main point in the middle and concentric circles with a couple of other supporting facts around it. “People will thank you for it.”
Enough said.