It is no surprise that an article titled “The Benefits of Brevity” would jump out to me. What is surprising though, is that it comes from a company specialising in surveys rather than communication.
InSync Surveys is a boutique Australian survey company founded by the gregarious Nicholas Barnett who artfully reminds us that “The more you say the less people hear”.
Nick is talking about the power of brevity around some fairly big concepts: corporate visions and mission statements and particularly likes that of Australia's largest company, BHP Billiton, which says in its charter: “We are BHP Billiton, a leading global resources company”.
Nick rightly makes the point that such simple statements are much easier for stakeholders to hear and to remember, and this applies to all of our communication.
Click here to read more and bear brevity in mind when you next prepare a piece of communication, no matter how big or small.
In short: delete or dilute.
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PRESENTED BY DAVINA STANLEY
I love what I do.
I help senior leaders and their teams prepare high-quality papers and presentations in a fraction of the time.
This involves 'nailing' the message that will quickly engage decision makers in the required outcome.
I leverage 25+ years' experience including
- learning structured thinking techniques at McKinsey in Hong Kong in the mid 1990s before coaching and training their teams globally as a freelancer for a further 15 years
- being approved to teach the Pyramid Principle by Barbara Minto in 2009
- helping CEOs, C-suite leaders and their reports deeply understand their stakeholder needs and communicate accordingly
- seeing leaders cut the number of times they review major papers by ~30% and teams cut the amount of time they take to prepare major papers by ~20%*
- watching senior meetings focus on substantive discussions and better decisions rather than trying to clarify the issue
My approach helps anyone who needs to engage senior leaders and Boards.
Recent clients include 7Eleven, KPMG, Mercer, Meta, Woolworths.
Learn more at www.clarityfirstprogram.com
(*) Numbers are based on 2023 client benchmarking results.
