The New Manager Mindset

Chapter 6. Saying It with Purpose

I can practically guarantee that you do more writing in a day than you do design work. You do more talking. You do more pitching. More wondering aloud with coworkers and peers. More speculating. More defending and convincing. So few of these moments, in my experience, are seized with the same vigor for clean communication that you put into a design. So few of them are planned for their purpose, considered for their effectiveness, or evaluated for their results.

I have to be honest: Most people suck at communicating. (Not all of them, of course, but yeah, most.) And remarkably few people know how much it’s affecting their ability to lead.

This happens because people tend to be bad at the thing at the very core of good communication: clear thinking. The human brain just isn’t very good at turning off all the noise of the day so it can focus on a concise, clear message. It’s just not an easy thing to do.

But failing to communicate well leads to countless problems. Daily problems. Financial problems. PR problems. An unclear message results in an inaccurate interpretation, that leads to guesswork, and next thing you know, you’re wasting hours and hours trying to clarify details that you thought should have been understood from the beginning.

That’s why it’s so important to master communication. To learn to say things with purpose—a purpose of clarity, concision, and completeness.

And you do that by using tools.

This chapters covers tricks to good communication. ...