Periodically, I share a favorite book review from Readitfor.me.
There is never enough time to read all the latest books – this tool is a great way to learn and to stay on top of the latest topics and new ideas.
The Readitfor.me tool has grown into a great resource for both personal and team growth, offering book summaries, micro courses and master classes. Check out this link: Readitfor.me. See how these tools can help build you personal and Team Strength.
Here is a summary of the Book Brief by Joseph McCormack.
Getting you point across clearly and concisely, saves resources- time and money.
Read on to learn how you can get your point across in a world full of distractions.
Brief
by Joseph McCormack
Book Review by ReadItFor.me
We live in an attention-deficit economy, and being brief is both desperately needed and rarely delivered.
When we are not clear and concise, there are consequences. Time, money and resources are wasted. Decisions are made in confusion, great ideas don’t get pursued, and deals take far too long to close.
This book is all about getting your story straight, and then getting to the point. Quickly.
Join us for the next 12 minutes as we explore how to communicate your message briefly, and powerfully. As author Joseph McCormack points out – it’s like Six Sigma for your mouth.
Let’s get started.
These days, everybody is busy. Especially executives. Your rambling marketing message or sales pitch is likely to get lost in the daily flood of information they struggle to stay on top of.
As McCormack points out, being brief is not just about time. The more important point is how it feels to the audience. It’s not about using the least amount of time. It’s about making the most of the time you have.
There are three things you need in order to adhere to the principles of brevity – be concise, clear, and compelling. What follows naturally from this is that you also need to have a through understanding of your subject matter.
Living in a world full of distractions means that the people around you are mentally stretched. That makes getting to your point before your audience gets distracted an imperative.
There are 4 main sources of pressure your audience is battling as you try and get your point across:
Here’s the point. Even if you are given 30 minutes to make a presentation, you have far less than that before your audience tunes you out.
In spite of the evidence that brevity is a necessity in today’s world, it turns out to be difficult to master because of what McCormack calls the “seven capital sins.”
People who start to gain experience in making presentations and sales pitches mistakenly abandon outlines, thinking they are a tool that only rookies use.
Professionals understand that an outline is critical to their success. McCormack tells us that there are five immediate benefits you’ll get by using them.
Outlines keep you:
The BRIEF way to do an outline is organized as follows:
This format can be used for anything you need to present – from an important project update to your team to the most important sales pitch of your life.
Now that we’ve covered how to outline your message, let’s move on to how to deliver it.
Bore your audience to death with corporate-speak and they’ll tune you out faster than you can say “next slide.” But tell them a good story and they’ll gladly give you their undivided attention.
McCormack introduces us to the idea of the Narrative Map to help us do just that. There are five elements in the map.
The focal point
This is the central part of the story, and tells the audience what it’s about. For instance, at the beginning of his presentation launching the iPhone, Steve Jobs said “Today, Apple is going to reinvent the phone.”
Setup or challenge
In the context of a marketing or sales message, this is the challenge, conflict, or issue in the marketplace that your organization is addressing. Every great story includes a dragon that needs to be slayed.
Opportunity
This is about communicating the opportunity that the challenge poses. Some people call this an unmet need or an aha moment.
Approach
Now we move on to how the story unfolds. This is the how, where and when of your story, describing how you’ll solve the problem or take advantage of the opportunity. There are usually three or four key points to be made here.
Payoff
All good stories include a payoff at the end. This is where you paint the picture of what life looks like for your audience after your solution is implemented.
So that’s how you outline and then craft a narrative that gets communicated clearly, concisely and powerfully.
Let’s now move our attention to a method for being clear in our every day conversations with the people around us.
As McCormack points out, if we are undisciplined in how we present information, we are even more undisciplined in how we have our daily conversations.
Being brief in a conversational setting means shifting from endless monologues to what he calls having controlled conversations. These conversations have a rhythm, a purpose, and a point.
In order to get conversations right, there are things you need to do, and things you need to avoid.
Let’s start with the three common mistakes that draw people into long, unwieldy conversations:
Now let’s move to a structure for balance and brevity. McCormack calls these TALC Tracks.
T is for Talk
Somebody in the conversation starts talking. It could be you or the other person. There are two things to consider at this stage:
AL is for Actively Listen
Listen closely to what the other person is saying the entire time. Don’t zone out, multitask, or otherwise take your attention off the other person. There are two things to consider at this stage:
C is for Converse
When a natural pause happens in the conversation, it’s your turn to jump in with a comment, question, or sometimes a bridge to another topic. There are three things for you to consider at this stage:
Now that we’ve covered the foundations of how to be brief, let’s go into some specific examples of when and where to be brief.
In Meetings
We all know that meetings suck. There are three villains that you need to slay in order to make them suck less.
Social Media
McCormack suggests that we create social media posts and emails that respect a busy executive’s time. That almost always means making things shorter.
Presentations
The best way to deliver a presentation is to first understand what your audience wants to hear, and then speak to those things, and those things only.
Job Interviews
Nobody likes job interviews, and that includes the person doing the hiring. When you are the candidate, create a BRIEF Map that quickly explains why you are qualified. Then, tell a story that shares some of your past successes that demonstrate what your potential employer is looking for.
Sharing Good and Bad News
When you are sharing good or bad news with your team, always get to the point quickly. Then, let some time for the news to sink in and leave time for them to ask questions.
When you are delivering bad news in particular, consider three important issues:
Everybody is busy. The world is begging you to get to the point quickly.
As Franklin D. Roosevelt once famously said:
Please share this with a friend/colleague