Better Insights, Better Results
"Effective communication is 20% what you know and 80% how you feel about what you know." -- Jim Rohn The secret of effective communication is The Power of 3. We find things easier to follow when we can break it down and remember three key things.
You have mental capacity for 750 words per minute. People speak at about 150 words per minute. That leaves 600 extra words per minute. That’s the Elusive 600.
Stories that Move Mountains: Storytelling and Visual Design for Persuasive Presentations, by Martin Sykes, A. Nicklas Malik, and Mark D. West, introduces the CAST system for creating visual stories. It’s a powerful book about how to improve your presentation skills using storytelling and visuals.
Synthesis is a powerful way to distill information. You can boil down ideas and communicate the key take away. You can take a few ideas and combine them to form something new. Victor Cheng teaches us a formula we can use for synthesis. According to Cheng, Synthesis enables us to communicate in a way that is “concise, integrates detailed analysis of the big picture, and is action-oriented.”
Here is a simple mental model for communication. If you have a mental model for communication, then you can move your way up the communication stack more effectively. You can also avoid more communication conflict. You can also work on your communication skills more effectively. That’s the true power of a simple model.
