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Last Wednesday we held our monthly Influence Insiders radio show where we discussed several books. You can listen to the show here:
I reviewed two books: Talk Less, Say More and Covert Persuasion. In today’s post, I will provide additional details about Talk Less, Say More by Connie Dieken, which I haven’t had enough time to cover in details during the show.
If you are like me, you probably have a short attention span [for boring content]. The premise of the book, as the title suggests, is that for effective communication, less can be better. Through a 3 step process - Connect, Convey and Convince - the author provides a strategy to engage others to receive your message.
Connect:
This first step is about managing attention and making sure that people will actually listen to what you have to say. Dieken says that we often fail to engage people because we take too long getting to the point and do not focus on the person. We can connect by nailing the big idea, adapting the message to the audience and choosing the right level of candor.
Convey:
Once we master how to manage attention, we must also learn to manage information and communicate it clearly. The author provides many tips on how to use visuals effectively, on the importance of body language (which is a major component of communicating), and how to make your message stick (by telling stories and appearing spontaneous).
Convince:
If it wasn’t for this last step, Talk Less Say More would be a good book about effective communication. However, the purpose of the book is not only to help us become better communicators; it is about helping us to become better at influencing and at ‘making things happen’. Dieken provides many tricks to influence people; some of these tips include sounding decisive, displaying confidence, being direct and sincere, creating commitment by sharing ownership of ideas and involving key influencers.
Many of the concepts in the book are not new - as it is the case in most influence and communication books. However, it is information worth being repeated and the author does a great job at presenting strategies in a very simple and practical ways. For example, I particularly enjoyed several self-assessment quiz which helped me think about personal areas for improvement.
If you feel that sometimes people don’t always listen to your great ideas, or that even when they listen, things don’t always happen, you should benefit from reading Talk Less, Say More .
And in case anyone is wondering what this might have to do with comp, there’s a fabulous link: fewer measures generally sends a more powerful message. The more you say, the less is heard.
You can have a precise and “Fair” comp plan with six measures and all kinds of linkages, but you’ll miss your chance to direct focus and enhance performance. I you could only say three things to your sales people, what would they be? They can remember three important priorities without carrying the comp plan document around - so it’s best to limit their plans to three measures, max. Brevity is powerful.
Hi Donya,
Thanks for the comment and for making the link between my post about communication/influence and incentive compensation.
I believe I talked about this rule of ‘three measures’ elsewhere on the blog and you are right, I see so many companies measuring dozens of metrics - so many that very little is gained by trying to reward them. On the other hand, many clients do a good job at keeping the plans simple, but the reports and communication to the field is so terrible that reps get really confused, which again is wasting the efforts of an otherwise good incentive program.
As you said, in this field, brevity is powerful. And so is simplicity.
Julien