Welcome Professionals…

…I attended a speaking event yesterday. The first part of the presentation was delivered by the CEO, who had been running a successful company for 25 years. The second part was delivered by a consultant, who had served this company over 10 years and used it is a case study to explain some general patterns of leadership.

After the presenation was done, we had a casual conversation among the audience, since this was a best practice sharing event. I talked to three independent participants, who all mentioned the same thing: “Why do consultants always have to make it so complicated?”

Whether this generalized critique is fair or not, I think we need to take this feedback seriously. Oftentimes, we consultants tend to use complicated vocabulary for messages that could be delivered in much more simple terms. Why are we doing this? Is it just to make a simple finding look more sophisticated? Or are we shying away from straight and clear messages?

The attention span of an audience is extremely short and is getting shorter with more and more overload of data and general distraction. Complicated vocabulary and fancy buzz words will turn off the receiver. If we want to get our messages across, we need to deliver them very clearly and straight to the point.

Wishing you concise conversations

Malte

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