Some of the best communications advice I’ve read recently is to be found in Connie Dieken’s Talk Less, Say More.  Connie’s thesis is that world’s attention span is getting shorter, and she offers a 3-point plan for cutting through the clutter and capturing your audience’s attention quickly and efficiently.

Her main point is incontrovertible.  Attention spans are getting shorter, we are all trying to absorb more information faster than ever before, and there are more new ideas out there demanding our attention.  It’s a triple whammy, and Connie’s response is similarly three-fold:  connect, convey, convince. 

First, connect.  To connect with an audience, you have to be tough on yourself.  No wandering preambles, no endless qualifications, no screwing around before you get started.  Respect the audience’s time, and information overload.  Give it to them straight and as simple as possible. 

Most important, you have to know the audience – what it wants and needs, and what its preferred communication styles are. 

Second, convey.  Keep it simple, use clear visuals when possible, tell stories, and give your points in groups of three.  That’s about as simple as I can make it.  It’s all good advice and it all works. 

Third, convince.  The idea is to lead people to action, and you do that by sounding confident, cutting out the shilly-shallying, bringing others along with you by bringing them in and allowing them to own the solution too, and by adjusting your energy to the appropriate level for the audience and the room.  There, I summed that section up in one sentence.  Connie would be proud. 

This is a great book for the long-winded, the detail-oriented, and the footnoters of this world.  Life is picking up speed at an ever-faster rate, and we all have to learn how to keep up by cutting to the chase. 

For more on how to persuade others, see my article on How to Write a Great Speech.