How to be concise at work: the surprisingly simple secret

If you've heard that at work, it means they've already stopped listening a while ago.

I've won a national speaking competition twice.

I've presented to CEOs, negotiated with government regulators, and crafted messaging for $100 million ad campaigns.

And I've still received that feedback.

I still do.

After years of communicating in high-stakes situations and still working on my own conciseness, I've learned what being concise actually means, why it's so difficult, and the two phrases I use to get to the point when I have no time to prepare.

Cambridge Dictionary defines concise as short and clear, expressing what needs to be said without unnecessary words.

Read it again because there are two jobs hiding in that sentence, deciding what needs to be said, cutting the unnecessary words.

almost everyone jumps straight to the second one.

It's the visible half.

You can count words.

You can time yourself.

You can make that paragraph shorter.

For us Chinese professionals, that pull is even stronger.

When you work in your second language, a long block of English is just that much harder for you to make it through compared to your coworker.

Like reading through my newsletter right now.

I appreciate you, but cutting words without deciding what needs to be said doesn't make you concise.

It makes you incomplete.

In my own writing and speaking, I work in a specific order, decide what needs to be said, and then start cutting around that.

You've heard the advice.

Great speaking and writing starts with great thinking, which is true and often utterly useless.

Because great thinking isn't one thing.

A scientist reads a businessman's idea and finds it simplistic.

A businessman reads a scientist's idea and finds it over complex.

Both are thinking well, just for different terrain.