Leaders Light The Path

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The complete picture

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
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Especially in the technical domain, many communicators struggle with the challenge

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to convey a complete picture of their topic when speaking to an audience.

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After all, it's often quite a complex topic, especially

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if you care for the details.

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Yet, the actual challenge might be much simpler than that.

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Rather than to convey the complete picture it might be all

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about telling me only one thing.

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Because effectively, what you really need to do is to tell me one thing that

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makes me curious to hear the next thing.

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And when you've achieved that, it's the same challenge again.

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All you need to do is to tell me one more thing that makes me

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curious to hear the third thing.

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Step by step.

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When you do this repeatedly, eventually you'll have told me everything,

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but it doesn't feel nearly as tedious as we are used to from the

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usual approach to communicating.

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When you want me to understand the complete picture of your ideas, the

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challenge is not to tell me everything.

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It's not to give me the complete picture.

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The challenge is to figure out what's the one thing, the one thing

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that makes me want to know more.

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In other words, if you want me to get the complete picture, get

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me to want the complete picture.

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It's a much simpler approach.

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And much more related and informed by what matters to your

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audience rather than to yourself.

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