Introduction from the book of Alicia Abell
Wielding his red editing pen, my former boss,
President Bill Clinton, used to mutter, “Words, words, words,†as he slashed away unnecessary fluff from the speeches we’d given to him. Clinton wanted to speak to Americans, not over them, and he believed quite strongly that filling his text with unnecessary rhetoric only alienated the audience. Clinton was spot on. One of my colleagues used to say he was more Hemingway than Faulkner. Clinton wanted workers on the factory floor to understand him as well as the academics at Harvard and the members of Congress in Washington.
To achieve that goal meant never sacrificing the content or quality of an argument, but just framing it in a way that would keep our audience engaged, no matter what their level in life. It also meant keeping the President’s speeches organized, so that he offered a coherent argument, not a rambling lecture that would require a decoder ring to figure out.
It’s the same as talking to a doctor who can describe your condition in layman’s terms, versus the one who’s had his head in the books for too long. There’s a reason, in the end, Clinton is often described as one of the greatest communicators of the last century – a title shared with Ronald Reagan and Franklin D. Roosevelt. While Woodrow Wilson delivered powerful speeches, and his texts are worthy of bound volumes, no one ever accused him of being too cozy with the lower classes.
Speaking to people, not over them, isn’t easy. In fact, I’d argue that boiling down ideas into “Clinton-speak†is even harder than using the high-brow “industry-speak.†But it’s a skill that’s essential to great communication, no matter what your field of expertise. And it’s an approach that’s as applicable to a memorandum from the CEO to shareholders as it is to a speech at a board of directors meeting.
Think about it: How many meetings have you sat through where the speaker loses you less than five minutes into the discussion? Maybe his talk is filled with language so technical that you need a Ph.D. to figure it out. Or it’s so disorganized that it looks like the floor of your college dorm room. Perhaps he doesn’t even try to connect with his audience – no jokes, no stories, just numbers. Or maybe he leaves you wondering what in the world he wanted from you.
There’s simply no reason anything you hear or read should ever lose your attention or – even worse – intimidate you. The last thing any communicator should do, at any level, is marginalize his audience. The most important thing is to have your audience buy in to you and your message; the more comfortable they feel, the more they’ll be engaged with what you’re saying. You’ve received the highest compliment when someone in the audience leaves your discussion feeling as though you were talking directly to him.
- Josh Gottheimer
Cambridge, Massachusetts
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