Oct 15, 2024 • Avik Das
A few years ago, I published Talk it Out, a series of 1-2 minute mini-podcasts around effective communication on a platform called Jam, or Just a Minute. The service has since shut down, so I’m re-publishing my series as one blog post. Huge thanks to Pete Davies and Chris Pruett for providing the platform and encouraging me to get my thoughts out into the open.
Contradictary to the guidance in this post, the sections below may seem a bit disjointed. Initially, they were weekly episodes that were meant to stand alone.
Everyone talks about how important communication is, but why? So many conflicts or missed expectations happen because of poor communication. Think about some of these examples:
You’re arguing with your partner, or a friend. You just can’t understand why the other person doesn’t get it! Poor communication.
You work somewhere that values good ideas. Fantastic! But how do people know your idea is good or that it even exists, if you don’t tell them?
Ever had to convince someone to help you with something? They can’t help you if you don’t tell them what you need in the first place.
Communication happens in all sorts of ways, written, verbal, body language. No matter the medium, you need to know what you want to say, and say exactly that so you don’t drown out your main point. All of this takes practice. As long as you’re working with other people, you need to be an effective communicator. This post is meant to help you be just that.
There’s a lot of ways to improve communication, but if I’m in a pinch, the most important tip is the 1-2-3 of effective communication:
Let’s break this down a bit.
One, what does the audience already know? This is how you avoid that dreaded presentation where everyone is bored out of their minds because either they know the material, or it’s all going over their heads. I’ve even seen presentations that do both by repeating the basics and skimming over the hard stuff!
Two, what does the audience want to know? If you’ve ever been to a talk that never got to the point, you know what I’m talking about. You have to actually give your audience what they want!
And three, how do you connect the dots? This is your job as a communicator. But since you know the starting and ending points, you have the tools to get there.
Follow these principles, and your communication will be focused, engaging and actually useful to your audience.
It’s easy to think communication is about you, the person doing the communicating. But really, it’s about the audience. If they don’t understand what you’re saying, all your work is wasted.
I’m a software engineer. All the time at work, I collaborate with people who are not as technical as me, because their expertise is elsewhere. Designers and product managers, for example. The legal team. Marketing! These people are smart, they just specialize in different areas than me.
In one job, I had to convince a bunch of non-technical people why investing in making our software bug-free was so hard to do. The thing is, the product integrated with a bunch of external data sources and put it all together for our users. That also means a lot of places for things to go wrong, because communication between the different sources could break down. If you’re a technical person, that description is obvious, but if you’re not technical… well, it still might make sense, kind of. But the scale of the problem doesn’t really sink in.
So what I did was: I got my coworkers to stand in a line and pass sticky notes between each other. One person was the mobile app, another person was the database where the data was stored, and so on. Showing a little bit of data on the app took a lot of steps. That showed how complicated the system was, and how many places things could go wrong.
What the others lacked wasn’t intelligence. They lacked experience working with software systems, and experience seeing things go wrong. By having them act out the system’s behavior, I got them “in the trenches” in a way that was interactive and memorable.
So next time you need to explain something complicated to people with a different set of knowledge than you, think about what’s missing in their understanding and that’s where you want to focus.
Understanding what your audience already knows isn’t enough. You have to understand what they want to know.
You know those app or product websites that are supposed to get you to download or buy the product? Here’s a mistake I see all the time on those pages: nothing but a list of features. Okay, but what problem is the product trying to solve? When someone ends up on your product page, they want to know if you can solve their problem. For that, you need to tell them exactly what problem your product is solving.
Or another scenario is when my manager and my teammate ask me how my project is going. Both are technical enough that I can give them the same answer, but there’s some subtext. My teammate wants to know when my part will be done so she can build on top of it for her part, so I’ll talk about how I’ll have enough done in the next two days that she can move forward while I continue working on the pieces she doesn’t depend on. Meanwhile my manager wants to know if there’s anything he can help me with, so I’ll give a broad overview and highlight the parts where I’m waiting for another team. Same question, but since the other person wants to know something different, I can communicate more effectively anticipating their needs.
Don’t worry, I don’t have to read their minds. If I’m not sure, I should ask them for clarification before I answer. Once I know them well enough, I won’t even need to do that.
So if you want to make sure your communication is actually hitting the spot, understand what your audience wants to know and give them exactly that.
To ensure your communication has the maximum impact, start with a clear thesis statement, tie your supporting points back to that thesis, and do so incrementally.
One of the most effective things you can do to get your point across is to just say it clearly, and right at the beginning. In other words, start with a clear thesis statement.
What’s a thesis statement? A thesis statement is a sentence that references the topic you’re talking about and states your opinion of the topic.
Have you ever read something and by the end, you didn’t really understand what the point was? Or maybe you wrote an email, only to have people get the wrong message from it? What happened was you didn’t tell the reader clearly and decisively what you wanted them to get out of your words. Back when I was writing about hiring practices in the tech industry, a lot of what I was writing about was controversial. But I always made sure to state exactly what my opinion was in one sentence, so if my readers read nothing else, they would at least hear my central argument. Plus, it helped me, as the writer, make sure I even had a point in the first place!
Not only should you have a thesis statement, but you should put it up near the beginning, maybe even as the first sentence. That will put your argument in the reader’s mind, and they’ll keep it in their mind as they read the rest of your article or email. Now, you might be thinking you don’t want to present an opinion without some evidence to back it up, and that’s great! But don’t worry, you’ll still be backing up your opinion. The difference is, the reader will already know what you’re trying to prove with your evidence.
(You might hear about the thesis statement referred to as Bottom Line Up Front, or BLUF.)
Now, here’s my challenge to you: read this section and see if you can find my thesis statement. Here’s a hint: it’s right up front!
With your thesis statement out of the way, the next step is making sure the rest of your communication backs up your thesis statement.
Every section, every paragraph, every sentence ultimately should tie back to your central point and support that point. When I helped people out with their writing, the most common feedback was to ask how each point they’re making ties back to their thesis. Okay, it actually was that they didn’t have a thesis, but it was hard for them to come up with a thesis precisely because the different paragraphs didn’t back up a coherent point. It’s like they were writing two or more separate articles. Even worse, those separate articles contradicted each other!
That’s not to say you should omit any evidence against your main point. You can incorporate data that doesn’t back up your central argument, but tie it back by saying why you still believe in your thesis after all. That’s how you make your argument bulletproof.
At the end of the day, you’re trying to make a point, and the only way to make that point is to consistently provide evidence to back up that point. Everything else is just confusing.
If you want to keep your audience’s attention, one important tool is the Inverted Pyramid Structure. With the Inverted Pyramid Structure, you put the most important information at the beginning, then reveal increasingly minor details over time.
The Inverted Pyramid Structure hooks your audience’s attention and saves them time. Since the most important, high-level summary is right at the beginning, your reader knows right away whether they care about what you’re saying. This is why a thesis statement is so important: it’s the most important point, right up front. But one step further, the Inverted Pyramid Structure means your reader can keep going, exactly to the point where they have enough information. Everything after that is a detail not worth their time.
Aside from saving your audience’s time, the Inverted Pyramid Structure helps them understand you better. Each point you make primes their brain to contextualize what you’re going to say next. No more reading a detail and not even knowing what it’s talking about!
With that, I urge you to look for how I applied the Inverted Pyramid Structure in this section. In fact, once you recognize this structure, you’ll see it everywhere!
Communicating clearly means nothing without the right substance. The next few sections discuss what you should talk about in the first place.
In high school, presentations always required a lot of preparation. The topic was assigned by the teacher, and I’d have to do research to learn about that topic, almost memorizing what I was going to present. In college and later in the workforce, I got to give presentations on projects I was already working on, and the process was way smoother. I had to give a 45 minute presentation on my undergraduate research? Easy!
If you know the topic you’re talking about, you can adapt to questions others might have. You can deep dive into areas people respond to. Above all, you’re spending less energy recalling the basic facts, so you can talk more confidently. There’s even more trust when people understand you’re knowledgeable about the topic. All of these factors make your message more digestible to your audience.
And it’s okay if you’re not an expert. It may be that the topic you’re actually knowledgeable about is being a beginner at learning something! Talking about learning something new, from a beginner’s perspective, is still valid.
Whatever the case, don’t wing it. Talk about what you know.
One of the most common sources of miscommunication I see is when two people are arguing logically about something, just not about the same thing!
In my field of software engineering, one person might be proposing a solution to make the app faster, even if that means there are some errors here and there, while another person is proposing a solution to make the app less error-prone, even if it gets slower. Both perspectives are useful, but maybe the user is complaining about the app taking up too much space on their device! Without knowing what problem is being solved, your logical solutions may make the other person feel like they’re not being heard.
To avoid this, take the time to state the problem early on. What’s wrong that needs solving? What requirements should a good solution meet? And go deep! Don’t just say you want to make your app better; say you’re looking to make the app take up less space on more limited phones. Often, you can find a discrepancy right there, and you don’t waste your time talking about something that doesn’t matter to your audience. Only keep going after everyone involved agrees on the problem.
If you want to end up on the same page, start on the same page.
Another source of miscommunication I’ve seen is having different definitions for the same words. In the previous section, I gave the example of two software engineers wanting to make the app they’re working on “better”. One wanted to make it faster, and the other wanted to make it less buggy. If they both were clear about what improvements they wanted, they could figure out their disagreement right away. Instead, they used the same word “better” without defining it, so they were talking over each other.
This kind of confusion is weaponized all the time, especially in politically charged scenarios. You can never come to an agreement if both sides aren’t acting in good faith, but here’s what you can do on your side. First, be clear about what your terms mean, and that can entail choosing less ambiguous terms. The other is understanding how others interpret your words. What are their definitions?
And here’s the fun part: sometimes, you might already be agreeing because you’re using different words for the same concept! So define your terms.
I’ve been talking about getting everyone on the same page, and on that theme, my last piece of advice is make sure everyone has the same starting assumptions and the same value systems.
Let’s bring up that example again of two app developers, one who wants to make the app faster and the other wants to make it less buggy. Both of them might be very reasonable, logical people, but they find themselves coming to completely different conclusions. Why is that? Two things might be happening. First, the developers might have different starting assumptions. One thinks the app isn’t even buggy to begin with, and the other thinks the app isn’t slow. Secondly, the developers may disagree on what’s important to users. Do users care about that last bit of speed, or those occasional bugs? Two completely logical people that start at different places and use different rules will of course come to different conclusions!
This is why big corporations care so much about measuring user behavior and having a unified culture. They want everyone at the company to start at the same point and head in the same direction. So the next time you have a disagreement, start by examining the other person’s assumptions and their values. You might still disagree, but your conversation will be much more fruitful.
You have the substance and the structure, next up is adopting the right style. While communication style should be personal to you, some basic principles apply.
One of the most powerful tools in your communication toolbox is storytelling. Humans have a rich tradition of storytelling and we respond well to these narratives. Think fables meant to teach people moral lessons and epics documenting history, however embellished they may be. Not every piece of communication will be a story, but don’t discount its place in your arsenal.
Case studies are a common example of storytelling in settings where you wouldn’t think stories belong. Early in my career, I solved a problem for my team and shared my learnings outside the company. To keep people interested, I set the scene by introducing the problem, then talked about how I solved that problem and new ones as they came up. It was a me vs. the problem narrative. This motivated why my solution looked the way it did, conveying my point more effectively than if I had just listed out what my solution did.
(Video of the presentation if you’re interested.)
But even if you’re not talking about a real-world account, your communication can have elements of storytelling in it. When you give some background information, you’re setting a scene and introducing the characters. By going from general points to specifics and tying it back to your main point, you’re creating a beginning, middle and end, ensuring your audience remembers what you said.
You don’t have to write literature to tell stories. Get creative!
When you have the luxury to do so, put down your thoughts, then edit them to be cohesive. I’ve given a lot of advice on how to best structure your communication, but if you don’t have something worth communicating, all the structure in the world won’t help you.
Here are some things I do when writing, including when creating this entire series:
Eventually, some of this will become second nature, and your first draft will look closer to your final product. But transforming what’s jumbled up in your head into something that other people can understand always takes some editing.
(I applied these techniques as I republished my scripts in blog form.)
I’m going to keep this section short: cut the fluff.
In the last section, I talked about the importance of putting down your thoughts and editing them later. If you do this, you’ll find your first drafts verbose and unwieldy. That’s okay! But it does mean you have to be ruthless about removing anything that’s unnecessary.
Get rid of words that don’t add to your point. Get rid of sentences, paragraphs, even entire sections. Some flourishes are okay; they’re your style. But ask yourself: is this really something I need to keep?
This process is painful. You don’t really want to get rid of those beautiful words, right? But remember: the more you cut, the more impactful the remaining words will be.
I’ve talked before about not explaining what your audience already knows, because that’s boring, even patronizing. But that doesn’t mean you completely ignore those points. Instead, concisely summarize the background information you expect your audience to know, in order to provide the right context for the new material you’re about to present. The goal isn’t to actually explain that background material, just to reference it so you and your audience are on the same page.
In fact, I’m leading by example here! To set the stage for this section, I quickly referenced an earlier section about knowing your audience before jumping into the current thesis about establishing context.
As a software engineer, I’ve written a lot of technical documents. Each of those documents has a Background section. The section is usually only a paragraph or two, but it contains links to other material. Most of my readers will already know that material, so the section just jogs their memory. Anyone else can follow the links if they need to brush up on the context.
Give your audience a good starting point, and they’ll follow along much more easily!
Even if you follow all the guidance in this post, you need to live and breathe communication for it to be effective. Remember, communication is a collaborative exercise.
You can’t communicate effectively without listening.
There’s an idea floating around that some people want to be listened to, and some people want solutions. The truth is, even those who want solutions need to be listened to. As I mentioned in an earlier section, Agree on the Problem, you have to make sure you’re addressing the right problem. And for that, you have to listen to what the other person actually wants.
So how do you listen effectively? Here’s what you do:
Try to understand the big picture while you listen to the small details. Not everyone knows how to word their problems in a way that makes sense to you, so you’ll have to hear each detail, read between the lines and extract the themes all of their words convey.
Ask clarifying questions. Don’t interrogate them. Ask with curiosity so you can understand better. Reflect that curiosity in your tone so the other person doesn’t get defensive.
Repeat your interpretation back to them so you know you’re on the same page. Make sure they agree you understand them.
There’s a common saying: measure twice, cut once. I say, listen twice, talk once.
I’ve talked a lot about what you can do to communicate clearly and without misunderstandings. I’ve even talked about how to make sure you don’t misunderstand the other person. But all of this assumes all parties are communicating in good faith.
What exactly does “in good faith” mean? It means everyone involved is trying to reach a common conclusion, even if it’s not the position they started with. But not everyone wants a shared understanding. They just want to win at all costs. You can see this in their communication style, which uses tactics such as, but not limited to:
Not being consistent. If you give a counterpoint to something they say, they come back with a counter-counterpoint that contradicts their original argument! You keep going back and forth, but somehow, they just have to have that last word.
Arguing against what they think you said, putting you on the defense for something you didn’t even want to talk about and making you clarify the same points again and again.
Flooding you with tangents and even sources that don’t back up their argument, forcing you to do their research for them. By the time you have a response, they’ve moved on.
The common thread in all these tactics is the other person doesn’t want to communicate effectively. Recognizing that quickly is the key to cutting short that argument. Save your breath for someone who actually wants to talk to you!
