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Want people to hear you? Keep it short

By Jeff Corbett | Statesville R&L

Published: May 17, 2009

The Ten Commandments is made up of 297 words. The Lord's Prayer has 67 and the Bill of Rights contains 463. How about your last e-mail?

Use Simple Words

Of the 271 words in the Gettysburg Address, 73 percent (or 198 words) are one syllable.

Sonya Hamlin's law school text, "What Makes Juries Listen Today," advises budding attorneys to avoid "lawyer words."

She notes, "When you use a word that's not clear to the jury, the next 10 words go unheard."
People do this to you. They mentally stop to figure out what you mean, and miss what you are saying. Simple is best.

The 18-Minute Wall

There was a Navy study done to measure the attention span of a group in a classroom setting. After 18 minutes or so, it drops straight down.

Many public speakers do such a disservice to their audiences by not trimming out the high-fat content, and honing and tightening their text.

No speech can be entirely bad if it's short enough. As Mark Twain observed, "Few sinners are saved after the first 20 minutes of a sermon."

Voice-Mail Liposuction

Nowhere is brevity more appreciated than with voice-mail.

In "Simplicity: The New Competitive Advantage," Bill Jensen says far too many people call or send you written material without being clear to you about how their message connects to your top priorities.

"If it's an e-mail or voicemail," advises Jensen, "and you can't figure out what connection it has to your top priorities within 15 seconds, hit delete. The person who wrote the communication does not respect your time."

Brevity takes work, but so does being the best in what you do.

French mathematician Blaise Pascal wrote, "I have made this letter longer than usual, only because I have not had time to make it shorter."

Take the time to trim the time, and you'll be heard, remembered and understood.

Jeff Corbett has done public speaking across the Southeast for many years. He lives in Statesville and can be reached at jeff@speak-well.com.