Plain Talk About Clear Content – Shakespeare Tells You How
What are you trying to say? If the audience doesn’t understand, you’re wasting time. Let Shakespeare show you how to make content clear and understandable.
Shakespeare Invented “Business Speak”
Shakespeare was more than one of the world’s most famous writers – he invented statistics, manufactured quotes and made up words. Forget the beautiful plays, stories and sonnets: William was a businessman. He did it for the money.
Actually, Shakespeare is credited for inventing thousands of words we use every day. Here’s just a sample:
Eyeball
Gloomy
Hurry
Generous
Where would romance novels be without Shakespeare’s invented words?
“As dawn was breaking, the lonely bandit swaggered into the bedroom and saw the majestic maiden laying in the moonbeams.”
Bard Words
The Bard invented those words. But before you think he hasn’t contributed anything to your business vocabulary, you can thank Willie for:
Advertising
Champion
Marketable
Negotiate
Critical
Manager
That’s right – William Shakespeare created “MANAGER”!
Business Babble
The problem today, however, is that too many people are still making up terms and expressions. The result is business babble that is smothering critical information.
It seems to me that there are two different sets of rules when we communicate. We quickly simplify marketing down to a fourth-grade level for customers and consumers. Then we load up corporate communications and event content with business jargon, obscure acronyms and language straight out of a doctoral thesis.
Just between us, I strongly suspect that people add big words, complicated terms and tech-speak in an attempt to convince other people that they know what they’re talking about.
The Goal of Communications
The goal of communication is understanding plus action. So let’s not try to invent words or complicate things.
Who is the audience?
What are the desired results?
What does the audience need to see, hear, understand, appreciate and value to do what you want them to do?
What is the clearest, most concise way to communicate?
If you are a regular reader of this blog, then these questions should sound familiar. In the article – Results RX – The Cure for Common Communications I boiled it down to four key things – Think, Feel, Act & Do.
“All Results in business come from Think, Feel, Act & Do.”
Let’s make a pledge to make content clear, concise and understandable. Here’s how to use plain talk to communicate your content.
Plain Talk About Clear Content
Make your content easy to understand, appreciate and do. I call it “Plain Talk.”
Make your ideas impressive and your language simple –
Write and speak in ways people can easily understand. Use the audience’s language and vocabulary.
If you have to explain an expression, term or acronym, don’t use it –
Keep it simple unless there is no acceptable substitute. When you toss out a term the audience doesn’t understand, communication instantly stops. All of a sudden, your customers/employees/leaders/readers have stopped listening and are trying to figure out what you mean. No one is impressed by being made to feel dumb or uninformed.
Don’t assume that people will understand –
Terms, expressions and business jargon don’t always have the same meaning from company to company or even from department to department. One of my favorite strategies is “Tell me like I’m stupid.” Look for ways to communicate that are simple, straightforward and unambiguous. When in doubt, ask if people understand. If they aren’t getting it, stop and explain.
Eliminate Acronyms –
Shakespeare got away with making up words, but it took about 300 years. In communication today, don’t use made-up expressions and acronyms. It doesn’t matter if you saw them in Forbes or in the Harvard Business Review.
Let me share a true story. A software developer was on stage at a tech event explaining his company’s new financial software. It was intended to streamline processes for an organization’s business/financial development. Sounds pretty simple. The problem was the developer’s had an internal acronym for what their software did – BFD. The speaker couldn’t understand why the audience kept laughing.
“This BFD is important for corporate growth, sustainability and success.”
Excuse me … slight problem here!
So, dump the acronyms. How much extra time and energy would it take to say “business/financial development,” “business to business” or “earnings before interests, taxes, depreciation and amortization”?
Four Steps to Clarity
To generate the results you need, you have to speak the audience’s language and in the ways that connect with them. That was one of the take-aways in my earlier blog article Content GPS – How to Speak The Audience’s Language. If you want to make sure your ideas and messages are crystal clear, just follow these four steps.
1. Decide what are you really trying to say. Focus and re-focus until you can summarize it in one sentence.
2. How will the audience relate to the goal/opportunity/ problem/situation?
3. What needs to happen, and how will everyone know when it works and when it’s right?
4. What’s the benefit or loss? What does the company or the audience gain by doing it or lose by not doing it?
Shakespeare Tells You How
Remember, William Shakespeare was more than a famous author and playwright. He was a very successful businessman. History says Shakespeare wrote 37 plays and 154 sonnets. The man knew how to create content! He was a master of communication and knew how to engage and motivate audiences. If we asked him how to communicate our content, he might tells us this.
• “Brevity is the soul of wit.”
Be concise and use simple declarative sentences.
• “Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.”
Focus on what the messages mean to the audience. Explain the “why” before you get into the “how.”
• “My words fly up, my thoughts remain below…”
Make sure the information and the messages directly connect to the audience. Put their priorities first and speak their language.
huffington, forbes, fast, company, PBS
The Last Few Words
I hope these philosophies have instilled a random recognition and contributed to over-aspirationalizing a cross-functional approach to minimizing multi-disciplinary pushback and eradicating intellectual disconnects so you can proactively and seamlessly engage in 24/7 initiatives through best-of-breed, client-facing, actionable … actions.
Okay, if you don’t like that, I say let’s find the person who came up with Shizzle, Selfie and Twerking and immortalize them!
