How to Identify Your Bottom Line and Other Ways to Be a Concise Leader
Episode 708: Show Notes
Due largely to the media we’ve been consuming, attention spans are waning. Now, more than ever, we need to focus on concise communication at work so as not to waste time or lose focus, and to cater to neurodivergence. We recently had a conversation with our team about innovation, problem-solving, and presenting the root of those problems with solutions in a clear, concise way. The importance of utilizing meeting minutes as efficiently as possible is becoming more and more evident to us, and we want to promote the concise communication of new launch game plans, offers, marketing strategies, etc. This is a skill we could all use some practice in, and today’s episode is all about how to be more concise as a leader and how to train your team to identify and communicate the bottom line of their presentation and client communication.
Listen on your favorite podcast player
What Causes Unnecessary Verbosity
Using fewer words can make you a more impactful leader, and there are skill sets to be mindful of when seeking to be more concise. But first, it’s helpful to understand what causes us to ramble in the first place. The first factor impacting unnecessary verbosity is insecurity and the need to impress. It’s difficult to gauge whether to wrap up or continue a conversation. The second factor is the fact that our brains literally get pleasure in the reward center for talking about ourselves, making it terribly easy to ramble. We personally don’t want to waste our team’s time but maintain that there’s power in meeting with them as opposed to simply sending an email. That being said, the ability to be concise within that communication is still critical, regardless of how you’re communicating.
How to Be a More Concise Leader
The first step is to tune into your verbal patterns. You can do so by asking others for feedback, timing yourself, or retroactively watching videos of yourself in meetings. You then need to determine your bottom line before going into a meeting or presentation. Identify what it is you actually want to say. What’s the point you want to get across? The next step towards creating an attentive audience is practicing the pause. Tension creates curiosity, and pauses will also allow you to check in and read the room! This leads us to the next step: spend more time in listening mode. Remember, there’s a difference between listening and simply waiting for your turn to speak! In your next meeting, try to spend 70% listening and 30% speaking, and when it’s your turn to speak, ask purposeful, short bottom-line questions to encourage participants to come to their own conclusions.
How to Train Your Team to Bottom-Line
We’ve been considering the language we need to use to encourage our team to practice the skill of being concise. If you have long-winded colleagues or people that don’t know how to share their ideas and feedback, it’s your job as a leader to train them in the skill of speaking crisply to the essence of what needs to be spoken. If someone gets trapped in storytelling and describing the play-by-play, make it clear that you’ll be gently interrupting to ask for the bottom line to keep the conversation moving. Demonstration is the greatest teacher, so you need to personally script out the single most crucial phrase to say to deliver your message and ask others to signal when you’re rambling. You can even migrate the skill of concise communication to Slack, putting the crucial phrases in bold, etc., and expecting your team to do the same.
Being Concise in Client Communication
It’s important to carry these ideas of concise communication over into the client experience. Not only do we want to equip our team to be more concise and organized but we also want our clients to benefit. This includes keeping them up to date with what’s going on behind the scenes in a clear way and asking for feedback. Our aim is to instill in our team that although we want to be clear and concise, we want to keep it human when communicating with clients. Including the appropriate tone while being concise is an art and a science, and is a continuous learning process. We encourage you to start by getting clear and concise with your bottom line and leading with that!
Quote This
Pauses are an effective method for creating an attentive audience.
Highlights
What Causes Unnecessary Verbosity. [0:12:23]
How to Be a More Concise Leader. [0:16:20]
How to Train Your Team to Bottom-Line. [0:27:54]
Being Concise in Client Communication. [0:32:15]
Today’s Guest:
Abagail & Emylee
The Strategy Hour Podcast
The Strategy Hour Podcast is a twice weekly show hosted by Abagail Pumphrey and Emylee Williams, the founders of Boss Project. Join us for semi-ranty biz conversations for service providers looking to ethically grow their agency businesses. Episodes cover everything from lead generation to leadership mindset to team culture and beyond.
Key Topics:
Concise communication, Concise leadership, Bottom-line, Presentation skills, Listening skills, Modern attention span
