Hi. I'm Steve Johnson SJ connects
Strategic Communications. We are spending
a lot more time communicating
through technology these days, but that
doesn't change how we need to
communicate to be effective. Zoom fatigue
is no different than conference call
fatigue 10 years ago. So, to be an
effective communicator you need to be
concise with your message. This is
something I coach all the time. I
basically tell people whether you're
going to a meeting or having a hallway
conversation or you're on the stage at
Chicago Ideas Week, if you had to go out
there and say one sentence -- just one
sentence -- and walk away, what would that sentence be? How important would the word
choice be in constructing that sentence?And I was reminded of this strategy of
thinking about what that one sentence is
last week listening to a podcast, "Radio
Lab," and they were talking about a Nobel
Prize winning scientist Richard Feynman.
Very famous scientist who, in the '60s, was starting to teach a class at Cal Tech and
he basically started it by saying, "If you
could boil everything down to one
sentence, if there's gonna be a cataclysm
in this world and you had to boil down
one sentence that you could pass on to
whomever comes next,
he said something about the atom. I'm not a scientist so I don't know exactly what
he said. (Voice over) "All things are made of atoms -- little particles that move around in
perpetual motion, attracting each other
when they're a little distance apart, but
repelling upon being squeezed into one
another." Now, that one sentence carries a
lot of weight. In fact, he would say
things like, "In that one sentence you'll
see there's an enormous amount of
information." I think about that a lot, too.
How important are the words that you're
gonna put in there? But it's also a 30
word sentence. All right? I want to be
even more concise. I can do that even
with this sentence, and I don't think -- not
being a scientist -- lose too much meaning.
But being concise is important. (Voice over) "All things are made of atoms in perpetual
motion and attract each other when apart, but...
repel being squeezed together." Now he
might argue with me about the exact
content of that sentence, but I basically
took the bulk of the information and got
it down to 20 words. And that's gonna be
a lot easier for you to be able to
repeat so the audience remembers. So
think about what it is that you're
trying to get across. Think about the distractions or the
inanimate objects that are helping us
communicate right now. Take the time and
think what's that one sentence. Because
being concise is critical to being
effective in your communications.
