The Art Of Concision
Written by: Dain Hong / Communication / April 2020
You guessed it right— concision is the act of being concise. Mark Twain once humored: “I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.” This demonstrates that being direct in communication takes effort and time. While some individuals may mistake frequent and verbose speakers as good communicators, these two are of a completely different nature.
It is reality that one can speak endlessly without getting across a main message. It is also true that a few words can carry more weight than a lengthy speech.
Have you ever been described as long-winded? Garrulous? Verbose? Talkative? These words may at first appear to be complimentary, as it sure seems superior to being described as reticent, taciturn, and withdrawn. Being talkative reveals that you’re engaged and have much to share, right? While it does show more engagement than not saying anything at all, verbosity also demonstrates a lack of organization, control and direction in your idea presentation.
What does it mean to be concise?
Conciseness is the speech characteristic of effective leaders, meeting facilitators, and business partners. No one wants to hear another talk for an hour when the same message could be condensed to a few minutes. Loquacity is disrespectful towards listeners, and in the long run, will deface your professional credibility and your social likeability.
When a speaker values and implements concision, the listeners will better attend and remember what you say. You’ll will likely leave a more impressionable impact, and thus be able to lead, negotiate, and relate more effectively.
Let’s explore some approaches to overcoming logorrhea—more informally known as verbal diarrhea.
Recognize why you talk so much
In what cases do you tend to over talk? Is it in professional situations? Possibly social and familial as well? Additionally, what is the thought process leading you to be long-winded?
Possible reasons for verbosity could include the following:
Insecurity: You fear being dismissed as unintelligent, if you do not speak for at least a certain duration—whether or not you know what you’re speaking about.
Self-centredness: You are convinced that you have invaluable information to share, and that everyone should focus on yours and yours only. Others may share their opinions, but your acknowledgment of them is only so they can listen to yours.
Mistaking speaking for value add: You feel that speaking for a long period equates to perceived expertise and credibility. Whether or not the information is relevant to the current flow of discussion, founded in facts, or carefully structured, it doesn’t matter as long as you’re speaking.
Other reasons for your lack of concision could include the desire to showcase everything you know—despite relevance and time constraint—and a hunger for control over the situation. Take a careful look at these suggested reasons underlying your long-windedness. Which resonate with you?
Skip to the heart of the message
The next approach is by starting with the main idea. You may be hindered by some misconceptions. I have to start with the context, introduce the characters, and slowly ease my audience into the main reason you began talking in the first place. Or I have to provide the process I took to arrive at my message; jumping straight to the end thought may seem unreasonable, possibly even rude to those who are unaware of the course of thought. These are fair hesitations.
If you are skilled in providing the context in a matter of two to three short sentences, then you are exempt from this advice. However, the majority of us get side tracked as we try to paint the backdrop. Feeling that details are missing here, that the listener would be more convinced if we add a point there, we end up spending so much time on getting to the point that we don’t actually arrive. Even if we do, the attention and engagement of our audience has already been spent.
Having considered these risks of creating the background, the key is to skip the preamble, qualifications, backstory, and verbalized thoughts. Instead, identify what is needed to be known, rather than is merely nice to be known.
Take the following for example:
Last week I went to the grocery store to buy some flour. I was looking for regular rather than bread flour. I find that bread flour has more gluten than my system can digest. Everything was sold out; yeast included! It is either the case that people are purchase more than what’s necessary, or that the grocery stores are stocking up slowly. Whatever the case, I ran into our old colleague from grad school – Rhea—and she wants the three of us to meet. She’s wondering when would be the best time for a Zoom meeting or Google Hangout. When are you available?
The heart of the message would be in the final three sentences. The roundabout to get to this point is confusing and unnecessary. You may lose listener along the way, or worse yet, you may forget the main message you wanted to share. While this example is, it echoes the importance of starting with the need to know—for better engagement and organization. If time allows, then the nice to know can be added on.
Overall, concision is a skill to be developed—one that will lead to a more fulfilling communication experience for all parties involved.
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