University of Minnesota - UMN Executive Leadership Insights
Brief
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Brief

Make a Bigger Impact by Saying Less

Joseph McCormack
Wiley, 2014
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Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

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Recommendation

Communications consultant Joseph McCormack presents valuable tips on how to convey information leanly and meanly. Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche wrote: “It is my ambition to say in 10 sentences what others say in a whole book.” Or take an almost perfect example of a telling message that is “short, sweet and to the point”: champion boxer Muhammad Ali’s short-short poem, “Me? We.” Amid today’s information overload, lean messaging is essential if you want people to get your point. getAbstract recommends McCormack’s manual to anyone seeking to communicate concisely and clearly.

Summary

Blah, Blah, Blah…

Today’s constant barrage of information leaves you totally exhausted. Many people claim to feel as if they suffer attention-deficit disorder. Roger Bohn and James Short of the University of California at San Diego report that Americans collectively manage approximately 1.3 trillion hours of information above the information they manage at work. The average American “consumed 100,500 words on an average day.”

If you have something to communicate, be brief. Get to the point immediately and get your message across quickly in the clearest, most cogent way – before something distracts your overloaded readers or listeners.

“Deep Brevity”

As you practice brevity, don’t equate it with superficiality. Your goal should be deep brevity – being “succinct and savvy.” If you’re not efficient, people won’t hear what you want to communicate. Despite the importance of brevity, few people speak directly, clearly and concisely.

Besides just liking to talk, this failing stems from the “seven capital sins” that sabotage brevity:

  1. “Cowardice” – You need to communicate about a subject involving numerous perspectives...

About the Author

Joseph McCormack is founder of the BRIEF Lab and consults with executives on how to disseminate their messages.

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