John Adair's 100 Greatest Ideas for Brilliant Communication

Idea 17: A simple checklist for planning

I keep six honest serving-men

(They taught me all I knew);

Their names are What and Why and When

And How and Where and Who.

Rudyard Kipling, ‘The Elephant Child’ in the Just So Stories (1902)

Kipling here gives you a simple and easy-to-remember checklist to use whenever you are called on to make a speech of any kind. These are the six keys that unlock the door and enable you to prepare and plan with confidence.

Question	Action
Who?	Who are you going to communicate to? Try to visualize an individual, several people or an audience. What are their interests, presuppositions and values? What do they share in common with others? How are they unique?
What?	What do you wish to communicate? One way of answering this ...