Communication
Good communication is tragically misunderstood.
Good communication is not fancy presentations or email writing skills or speed of follow up. It’s not grammar or formatting or emojis (though these are important — especially emojis ;).
Good communication is: Does the other person understand what you’re saying?
The whole point of communication is to get a point across.
It’s to convey information from one human to another.
What’s the point?
Most people miss this point.
Whether it’s a slide deck or memo, bullet points or paragraphs, an email or a phone call, the medium, the formatting, the timelines of communication are all tools to support comprehension. But the only goal is comprehension.
Comprehension comes from clear communication.
And clear communication comes from clear thinking. There is no other way.
Goal: Comprehension
Medium: Clear Communication
Source: Clear Thinking
Clear thinking is scarcer than true news online these days. Most people miss on two levels:
Clear reasoning. They’re unable to think critically. In a world where we’re hit with opinions from everyone online, most people have lost their deductive reasoning capabilities. They know things, but they don’t know the WHY behind those things. Without this, clear communication cannot exist.
Clear intention. They don’t know their intention. They don’t know what message they want to get across. In a world of instant communication, most people _react_ rather than _respond_. We’re constantly reacting, without taking the time to identify what we want to convey and craft a response that serves that purpose. Unless you know what you want to say, it’s impossible for the other person to understand it.
Working on these two is high leverage — clear communication is the keystone skill that can 10x everything else.
Think about all the life wasted from “miscommunication”. It’s become normal to guess at what the other person is saying. To make assumptions, misinterpret, and stress ourselves out. We’re in a world of constant communication, of which maybe 10% is comprehendible. If we could increase this ratio, imagine how more effective (and less stressed) we’d be.
But mastering clear communication is not simple. It requires intense processing power from your brain. It requires us to learn on a deep level. Less surface level knowledge and more mastery.
If you want to be a better communicator, you must become a better critical thinker. Without this, no tool or tactic can help.
Clear communication is the highest predictor of intelligence that I’ve found. If someone can explain a complicated topic in very simple terms, and then go on to answer follow up questions directly with continued simplicity — they’ve got it.
Biggest tip for clear communication: learn.
Learn something backwards and forwards. Ask why until you understand it on a fundamental level. When you can teach it to a kindergartner in simple English — you’re communicating clearly.
I recently interviewed two candidates for a finance position.
The first question I asked: “What does negative net income mean?”
Candidate 1: Negative net income is reported on the income statement and refers to the situation when your total expenses exceed your total revenue over a fiscal year. It’s how much money a company has left after deducting all of its expenses from its revenue. If this number is negative, it means that the company is not generating enough revenue to cover its costs and expenses. This is done on an accrual accounting basis not a cash basis. ”
Candidate 2: “You spent more money than you made.”
Guess who we hired?