I'll get right to the point. When communicating with others at work, start at the end. Don't keep people in suspense about the import of what you're saying. Start with the import, fill in a few salient details, and ask if they want more background. If they don't, you're done. If they do, give some detail, and then ask again. Keep iterating until done.
Do you want more detail? No? Then we're done. Yes? Keep reading. There's a lot more.
Storytelling has become fashionable in workplace communications. Trainers are offering classes in storytelling at work — to motivate, to persuade, or to drive the point home. Storytelling does have its place, but that place is much smaller than many realize.
In the modern workplace, most of us have too much work and not enough time. We want to hear what others have to say, but with a minimum of fluff. We care most about what. Why or how, or who said what are usually far less important, and if we want to know, we ask. We don't want to sit through a long tale of why or how to get to the what.
Want more detail? No? Stop here. Yes? Keep going.
In books and screenplays, suspense is delicious. It keeps us glued to the screen, or turning the pages of that book. We thrill as we try to sort out the relevant from the irrelevant, and predict how the plot will unfold.
But in workplace communications, any suspense is big trouble. Your communication is just one of hundreds your listeners receive each day. They have neither the interest nor the energy to devote to wading through suspenseful tales to learn how they finally end. They want the end, right now, at the beginning.
More detail? If not, stop. If yes, read on.
Two things In books and screenplays, suspense
is delicious. It keeps us glued
to the screen, or turning the
pages of that book.happen when you withhold a story's end. First, listeners try to guess the end as you go along, just as they would in reading mystery novels or watching movies. And if the story is explaining some bad news, they suspect that bad news is coming. They imagine bad things, and what they imagine is beyond the storyteller's control — often worse than the truth.
Second, because listeners don't know where the story is going, they usually have difficulty distinguishing the more important story elements from the less important. They accumulate questions. Confusion sets in. Confusion leads to misunderstanding; misunderstanding leads to trouble. It's all so avoidable if the communication starts with the end.
One last detail.
A strong aversion to starting at the end might arise from a desire for the rapt attention of listeners. That's fine, if you're employed as an entertainer. If you aren't employed as an entertainer, soon you might not be employed at all. Top Next Issue
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Related articles
More articles on Effective Communication at Work:
- Discussus Interruptus
- You're chairing a meeting, and to your dismay, things get out of hand. People interrupt each other so
often that nobody can complete a thought, and some people dominate the meeting. What can you do?
- Patterns of Everyday Conversation
- Many conversations follow identifiable patterns. Recognizing those patterns, and preparing yourself
to deal with them, can keep you out of trouble and make you more effective and influential.
- Exasperation Generators: Irrelevant Detail
- When people relate stories at work, what seems important to one person can feel irrelevant to someone
else. Being subjected to one irrelevant detail after another can be as exasperating as being told repeatedly
to get to the point. How can we find a balance?
- The Paradox of Carefully Chosen Words
- When we take special care in choosing our words, so as to avoid creating misimpressions, something strange
often happens: we create a misimpression of ignorance or deceitfulness. Why does this happen?
- Facts, Opinions, Estimates, and Desires
- One reason why resource allocation debates can become so difficult is confusion about the differences
among facts, opinions, estimates, and desires. Clarifying their differences can reduce the length and
intensity of resource allocation debates.
See also Effective Communication at Work and Workplace Politics for more related articles.
Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout
- Coming April 3: Recapping Factioned Meetings
- A factioned meeting is one in which participants identify more closely with their factions, rather than with the meeting as a whole. Agreements reached in such meetings are at risk of instability as participants maneuver for advantage after the meeting. Available here and by RSS on April 3.
- And on April 10: Managing Dunning-Kruger Risk
- A cognitive bias called the Dunning-Kruger Effect can create risk for organizational missions that require expertise beyond the range of knowledge and experience of decision-makers. They might misjudge the organization's capacity to execute the mission successfully. They might even be unaware of the risk of so misjudging. Available here and by RSS on April 10.
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