Communicators, stop explaining & start illuminating your ideas
My mum recently took a trip to somewhere she's always wanted to go...
Her and two friends took a day trip to the famous 'Barry Island' from the BBC sitcom Gavin and Stacey. Its in Glamorgan, South Wales. Her eyes lit up as she told me all about 'Barry Island Promenade', 'Nessa's slots arcade' and 'Gavin & Stacey's house'.
Not so exciting for me
She couldn't understand my lack of excitement at her Barry Island road trip recollections. But, as she reeled off these 'famous' locations each clearly conjured up a vivid picture in her mind. To me they were just words.
Your audience doesn't have your mental model
Spending time with a place, idea, or thought helps you gradually build a mental model that your mind recalls at the mere mention of the words. To you those words now have definite meaning, and accompanying imagery. Those same words don't have the same effect on those who lack your experiences and exposures.
Go back to beginners mind
You didn't gain your current level of knowledge around the topic by somebody explaining it to you once. You slowly pieced the jigsaw puzzle together. You didn't start with the final image on the box. It's unrealistic to believe 'explaining' the final image once will ensure your listeners get it.
Make it concrete
Explainers often load their explanations with abstract words. 'Abstract' means things that exist in the world of ideas rather than reality, like resilience, efficiency and optimisation. They're imprecise and don't instantly conjure up imagery in a listener's mind.
Dress up your explanations
Great communicators don't deliver explanations, in the same way that comedians don't explain their jokes. Comedians use irony, exaggeration and storytelling to dress up and illuminate their comic explanations. Great communicators do a similar thing, but instead of using comic devices they use memory devices.
Appeal to the mind
A memory device just means dressing your explanation up in a way that means it will stick in your audiences mind. This means appealing to one (or ideally a combination of) the logical, emotional, or imaginative parts of you audience's mind.
Instead of her lengthy explanation of the landmarks at Barry Island, my mum would've been better off showing me pictures (imagination), or some fun facts (logic) or even traumatising me (emotional) with an episode of the show.
Ask yourself this question...
A simple way to work out how to dress up your explanations is to ask yourself, "what format would have helped this idea stick in my inexperienced mind with a single exposure?" A story, metaphor, model, research paper, example, statistic?
Stop explaining, start illuminating, and you'll raise your communication game overnight...
