Giving your audience the complete picture can be a difficult task. A slight shift in perspective makes it way easier …
Read more thoughts on the art of communicating week-daily at https://michaelgerharz.com/blog
Transcript
Especially in the technical domain, many communicators struggle with the challenge
Speaker:to convey a complete picture of their topic when speaking to an audience.
Speaker:After all, it's often quite a complex topic, especially
Speaker:if you care for the details.
Speaker:Yet, the actual challenge might be much simpler than that.
Speaker:Rather than to convey the complete picture it might be all
Speaker:about telling me only one thing.
Speaker:Because effectively, what you really need to do is to tell me one thing that
Speaker:makes me curious to hear the next thing.
Speaker:And when you've achieved that, it's the same challenge again.
Speaker:All you need to do is to tell me one more thing that makes me
Speaker:curious to hear the third thing.
Speaker:Step by step.
Speaker:When you do this repeatedly, eventually you'll have told me everything,
Speaker:but it doesn't feel nearly as tedious as we are used to from the
Speaker:usual approach to communicating.
Speaker:When you want me to understand the complete picture of your ideas, the
Speaker:challenge is not to tell me everything.
Speaker:It's not to give me the complete picture.
Speaker:The challenge is to figure out what's the one thing, the one thing
Speaker:that makes me want to know more.
Speaker:In other words, if you want me to get the complete picture, get
Speaker:me to want the complete picture.
Speaker:It's a much simpler approach.
Speaker:And much more related and informed by what matters to your
Speaker:audience rather than to yourself.