Warning: Obfuscation Ahead

IT IS SOOOO EASY TO COMPLICATE THINGS. How? Just talk like you write.

"Huh?!" (I hear you say.)

It's true. We tend to make our writing much more complex and dense than it needs to be (and, for most people, a lot wordier than it needs to be), and that too easily spills over into how we talk, particularly when we're trying to persuade or influence others.
        It may seem more professional and advanced to use a lot of long words. You certainly see this in most press releases and marketing pieces, and waaaay too many presentations and sales pitches — phrases like "maximizing your mission-critical applications while simultaneously achieving dramatic reductions in resource-intensive operational flows."
        In reality, writing or talking like that is one of the worst things you can do to keep people engaged in your ideas or message. Here's why:

1) People may not even understand what you're talking about.

2) They may stop listening or reading while they try to decide what something like "mission-critical" really means.

3) Even if they understand both the context and the words, it's likely to sound or feel phony, since only "Me"-focused sales people and marketers talk that way.

You want to know how insidious — Ooh, tripped myself right there! "Insidious" is actually the perfect word for that idea, but will everybody understand it? Not necessarily. Better to go with a different approach, like "...how easy it is to fall into this trap".
        This doesn't mean you have to dumb-down your message. It's just that the simpler it is to follow your ideas, the faster the receiver can process it and the more likely (and grateful) they are to stick with you.
        Back to what prompted today's post: "internationally-active" versus "globe hopping". These came up in a project we're working on. Sure, there are subtle differences between the two phrases, but in the context in which we would use them, they weren't that different.  Meanwhile, it's eight syllables versus three.
        Do you know what happens when you spin out a phrase that requires eight syllables? The receiver's mind just stops, waiting for you to finish the phrase. Yes, it's only two words, but compared to the speed at which our brains work, it takes half a lifetime just to get through those two words.
        And it's harder to say things like that, whether it's you the speaker or them, the readers (who say these words in their heads as they're reading). Try those two phrases right now and see for yourself.
        So keep your words short — and few in number, if you can help it — and your ideas will be much more concise.
        (Time to take my own advice . . . bye!)

Related posts:
  · Busted
  · exercise #2 in Don't Get in the Way of Your Message
  · Stillness in a Hectic Life
  · Why Be Concise?

Comments

[Lisa Braithwaite]

This is a great point, John. I was working with a client recently (I wrote about it here: http://coachlisab.blogspot.com/2008/03/what-is-essence-of-your-message.html ), who was having trouble with her content, mostly because she was rehearsing it the way she wrote it.

Once she recognized how stilted the written content sounded and started using conversational language, the whole thing just fell into place.

[Terry Gault]

John,

Thanks for the post!

I generally think it is advisable to avoid jargon altogether for the reasons given above; it is too easy for your audience to lose sight of the presentation and get caught up on the jargon and acronyms. I think that using an informal, conversational tone connects with your audience much more effectively than trying to sound precise and technical by using jargon.

Clarity and simplicity are critical in presentation content. I had a great presentation coach who said, “If you can’t make it clear, it doesn’t belong in your presentation.”

[John Windsor]

Lisa, excellent post. Thanks for including that link. And I loved your point about the *speaker* perceiving the situation differently and adjusting their approach in, unfortunately, ineffective ways.

Terry, I love that line from your speech coach, and I'm totally with you about jargon. The challenge is in getting people to realize that they're being stilted or using words that aren't immediately obvious to the audience (aka jargon).

Thank you both for your comments, and sorry for the delay in responding. It's been CRAZY around here lately.