Practice Your Soundbites

I’m notorious for long winded answers and explanations. My wife prefaces almost every question she poses to me with, “In 500 words or less…” I can’t help it: My mind has a tendency to get ahead of my mouth, and, unfortunately, I’m a think-out-loud kind of person. Consequently, people listening to me must work hard to follow my stream of consciousness — good luck with that.

What I’m understanding, however, as I grow into the leader that I need to be, is that my current way of communicating is not effective. I get too mired in the details. This prevents a listener from fully comprehending the point I’m trying to make.

For those of us who struggle with the skill of concise communication — and I do believe this to be a skill — we need to work on practicing our “soundbites.” By “soundbite,” I mean the key point one tries to convey. When we can, we should take the time to drill down to the essence of what we want to say and rehearse that before speaking it publicly. The more effective we become at soundbites, the more effective we will be at communicating critical thinking to our team.

And the times when we are required to share our thoughts extemporaneously, which is often, we must be disciplined…to slow down our thinking and limit what we share. Over time, this discipline will provide us the confidence and the capability to speak what is on our mind clearly and succinctly.

We live in an age where people’s attention spans are in short supply. For this reason, we must develop the skill to deliver soundbites that convey our intended point.