“3” is the Magic Number for Next Level Communicators
“3” is the Magic Number for Next Level Communicators
Simplicity, and not shallowness, should be one of the primary aims you strive for in each of your talks. Albert Einstein once said, “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” And the economist, E.F. Schumacher famously said, “Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex. It takes a touch of genius and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction” (From the book, Small is Beautiful). A touch aggressive for my taste, but you get the point.
Or as the really aggressive acronym KISS says, Keep it simple stupid.
In this post I want to give you one reason, and one tip behind the why and how of simplicity. Understand and utilize this principle, and you will see immediate gains as a communicator.
The Why Behind Simplicity
Ever been anxious before a presentation? Sure you have. I’m three and a half decades into this, and I still get anxious. In fact, if I don’t have a touch of anxiety before I speak that’s normally a really bad sign. But here’s the thing: The science reveals it’s not just we as communicators who experience anxiety related to our talks, so does our audience.
Dr. Paul King is a scholar at Texas Christian University in the field of communication studies. He has researched what has come to be called the, “state anxiety in listening performance.” When an audience receives too much information from the communicator they go into something called “cognitive backlog,” which is like putting more and more weights on a bar at the gym. King reasons that this works against the communicator: “As more and more stuff you need to remember piles on, it creates greater and greater pressure and pretty soon you’re going to drop it all.” Specifically, Dr. King studied graduate students and discovered that on average they prefer to take one three hour class a week, as opposed to three fifty minute classes per week. Guess which format leads to better grades? Breaking the class down into three fifty minute segments. His conclusion is the shorter the talk, the better the chances are the listener will retain the message. What King says the science is pleading for is simplicity.
This is why TED Talks, which are the most watched presentations in the world, demand speakers go no longer than eighteen minutes.
Now I’m not arguing you should aim every presentation for eighteen minutes, but the tighter your presentation, the better chance we have at truly inspiring our audience. I mean think about it, some of the most moving speeches in world history were simple, not shallow; tight not wandering. John Kennedy’s inaugural address is one of the most famous in U.S. history, and it was fifteen minutes. The next year, when JFK spoke at Rice and challenged America to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade, that address was seventeen minutes. And Dr. King’s, I Have a Dream speech, was around seventeen minutes. These speeches and more were simple, substantive, creative and compelling. And they help us see this critical point in establishing simplicity in our talks: The best messages are not only about what we put in them, but what we leave out.
How Do I Become Simpler as a Communicator?
The short answer is what Carmine Gallo calls, “The Rule of Three”. In essence, Gallo says that people can remember three pieces of information really well. Any more than three pieces of information, or points, will bring about the law of diminishing returns. More than seven and your audience will surely reach “cognitive overload”.
Look around and you will see the rule of three at work in some of the most important, transformational ways imaginable. The Declaration of Independence is one of the most referenced documents in world history. A major reason for this is Jefferson’s use of the rule of three when he wrote that America was to be about, “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” In literature there are the three little pigs, three musketeers and three wishes granted to Aladdin. Three medals are awarded in Olympic contests. Jesus received three gifts from wise men. And then there’s the holy trinity of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. So there’s that.
So if you want simplicity, refrain from having more than three points to your presentations. Remember, your audience’s anxiety will only spike the more info you throw at them.
Practical Suggestions for Achieving Simplicity:
Front End Feedback. One of the mistakes we make as communicators is we either don’t get regular feedback, or it comes on the back end of the talk, when it should happen on the front end, before we give the message. The church I serve has a team of people who reviews my manuscript about three days before I give the message, and gives me honest feedback both on substance, and how it will come across to different groups of people (all represented on the feedback team). I want to encourage you to take the initiative to regularly solicit feedback before you give a presentation, and especially ask if the talk is simple, or if there is too much information.
Commit to the Rule of Three. Even if it’s just for a season, I think it’s great for every communicator to refuse to allow themselves to go beyond three points in their message. This discipline will force you to tighten things up, and will drive you towards simplicity.
Shorten Your Messages. Now you should know by now I’m a big believer in manuscripting (not transcripting). One of the ways this helps me towards simplicity is I set a page limit every time of five pages, space and a half with ten point font. I’m currently in the process of looking to knock off a quarter of a page in my talks, to force me into simplicity. What I have found is the older I’ve gotten as a communicator, the easier it is for me to go longer given the breadth of my life experiences, reading and information gained. And longer is the enemy of simplicity. If you don’t manuscript, make it your aim to knock five minutes off of your messages, this too will drive you towards simplicity.
Okay, that’s three practical suggestions, so I’ll leave it at that!
If you haven’t done so already, preorder my book, Grace to Overcome, which releases August 19th, here. It’s a book of over thirty of my favorite stories and will help you become a better communicator.
