On October 6th, 1993, Michael Jordan left the professional sport of basketball for the first time. He left the hardwood court of the Chicago Bulls, hung up his jersey, and picked up a baseball bat.
Jordan decided to try his hand at baseball with the Chicago White Sox organization. The transition was huge. He went from a star basketball player to an AA baseball team by playing for the Birmingham Barons.
On March 19th, 1995, Jordan announced his comeback through his agent, David Falk. After 21 months, Jordan made his basketball comeback. He rejoined the Chicago Bulls and led the team to three additional championships. That’s not the kicker, though.
Jordan’s return announcement was most fascinating. He’d learned something over the years: The need to be concise.
There was no lengthy press release announcing his return. No, Jordan kept it short and sweet. He simply said:
I’m back.
3 Ways To Be Concise
Michael Jordan didn’t need to say a lot to effectively communicate his return, his commitment, his dedication. Two words said it all.
What if we tried to be more concise? Could we become even more effective leaders? I believe so. Let’s look at 3 ways to be concise in your communication.
1. Know your message:
We can go long, extrapolate, and become wordy because we don’t know the message we want to communicate. We think if we word vomit more words, people will listen and get the point of what we’re trying to say.
That’s wrong. The more we say, the more people get confused. We can become more concise by knowing the message we want to convey.
Study the message you want to communicate. Get it in your head. Figure out exactly what you want to communicate.
You have to know your message so you can cut the extra. Don’t be afraid to cut out the things that don’t need to be there.
When you know your message, you know what to say and what doesn’t need to be spoken.
As author Beatrix Potter said: The shorter and the plainer, the better.
2. Use plain language:
It’s easy to get caught up in the latest business jargon. We hear one of our colleagues say something and we latch onto it. There’s a temptation to say:
- Bandwidth
- Blue Ocean
- Circle Back
- Offline
- Deliverable
- Alignment
These words can be confusing to the average Joe at your workplace. They may give you a raised eyebrow, a quizzical stare, or a grunt when you say them. They’re lost because they don’t understand your bloated speech.
Instead, look to use words that everyone in your organization can understand. When you use common, everyday words in your communication, you can become more concise and your people can understand you.
3. Stop over-explaining:
If we think someone can’t or won’t understand what we want to communicate, we begin to go into overflow mode. We start to overshare, fill in empty spaces, and answer questions that were never asked.
Share your message with the information you believe is needed. If there are questions, allow for others to ask them. Don’t answer questions before they’re asked.
You’ll soon discover there’s a beautiful to conciseness. Your message is more easily heard, understood, and repeated.
Be concise.
