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Engage, Elevate, Communicate: Davina Stanley on Crafting Clear Business Messages
716 Plays1 month ago
In this episode of the PolicyViz Podcast, I chat with communication expert Davina Stanley about the power of clear and structured messaging in business communication. Davina shares insights from her books Engage and Elevate, discussing how leaders and teams can improve their communication efficiency through message mapping. She explains how a well-structured message can reduce back-and-forth revisions, build trust, and lead to faster decision-making. Drawing from her diverse career—from teaching kindergarten in Australia to working at McKinsey—Davina emphasizes the importance of outlining, visual hierarchy, and strategic thinking in crafting compelling business messages. Whether it's an email, a presentation, or a major proposal, she reveals how clarity in communication can transform workplace productivity and leadership effectiveness.
Keywords: business communication, message mapping, clarity, leadership, structured messaging, workplace productivity, presentations, effective writing, trust in communication, decision-making, corporate communication, professional development, consulting, strategic messaging
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Email: jon@policyviz.com
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Transcript
Introduction to Presentation and Communication Skills
00:00:13
Speaker
Welcome back to the Policy Biz Podcast. I'm your host, John Schwabisch. I hope all is well with you. On this week's episode of the show, we take a bit of a little bit of a turn away from data visualization into presentation skills, leadership skills, and communication skills.
00:00:30
Speaker
And I'm happy to be joined by Devona Stanley, owner of Clarity First, where she helps clients and organizations do a better job of creating clear and efficient messages.
Strategizing and Outlining Messages
00:00:41
Speaker
As you're going to hear, Devona has a particular view about track changes, has a particular view about building out and strategizing and outlining your message before you just start diving in and typing and writing up your memos and reports.
00:00:54
Speaker
And this approach, of course, echoed with me because I teach very similar techniques and strategies when it comes to presentation skills that you don't just boot up PowerPoint or boot up Canva or boot up Keynote, whatever tool you're using to start making your slides. And instead, you should start by outlining and strategizing and thinking carefully about what you want to say and how you should say it.
00:01:17
Speaker
So we spent a lot of time in our discussion talking about how to take that more strategic, careful approach to your communication.
Benefits of Message Mapping
00:01:25
Speaker
And then we talk about Devona's message map strategy that she uses with her clients and how that visual approach to outlining and sketching and sort of diagramming out your argument your point your diagram your message your report whatever it might be how that helps people work through the argument before they worry about all the details to get into the part where you're sort of doing all the grammar and you're editing and it bogs people down and takes a lot of time so no matter if you are on the data visualization side if you're on the data communication side if you're in a leadership position in your organization
00:01:59
Speaker
I think this podcast episode, along with her book, Engage, and her other book, Elevate, is going to be really valuable for you to help you think about how to create this strategic approach to your communication, rather than just diving in and saying, going to create this thing, be it a dashboard, a graph, a report, a memo, whatever it is, and send it out to people and hope that they sort of get it and hope that they'll give me clear and efficient, productive comments and responses. So I think you're goingnna enjoy this episode. I certainly enjoyed the conversation.
Devona's Career Journey
00:02:30
Speaker
And here is this week's episode of the podcast with Devon A. Stamler.
00:02:36
Speaker
Hi, Devana, good to see you. Good to meet you. Thanks for thanks for coming on the show. Oh, thanks for having me. It's great to meet you too Excited to have you on the show. I have your book here, Engage. Love it.
00:02:47
Speaker
Thank you. Very enjoyable read, ah very visual read, which of course I enjoy. um So I thought we would start with background. you know What's your background? How did you get into this like area of work? And why did you start your firm, Clarity First?
00:03:04
Speaker
Okay, several questions. Yeah. i think So how did I get into this work? I've got a really unusual career. I began as a kindergarten teacher in Australia, which is not the usual beginning for a McKinsey communication specialist.
00:03:19
Speaker
mean i yeah Probably not. Yeah, probably not. Probably not. Probably not. But it's really useful, really useful. Yeah. so So I grew up on a farm and I had no idea what I wanted to do, but I thought anything was possible. I just had no idea what that was.
Structured Communication at McKinsey
00:03:38
Speaker
And so anyway, I did teaching because it was a guaranteed ticket off the farm and I liked children, but and I learned to communicate by, you know, taught by a wonderful, wonderful children's author when I was at teacher's college.
00:03:52
Speaker
And so, I majored in art while I was there, which will be relevant for when. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. But um anyway, Mem Fox, who writes these most beautiful Australian children books, taught me to communicate and taught me a whole lot of really great things about writing in particular.
00:04:11
Speaker
So I took that away with me. And when I decided for certain that teaching young children probably wasn't for me, I went back to university and studied communication while I was working in a corporate communication um role inside a large chemical company.
00:04:28
Speaker
And so, you know, I was doing doing and learning at the same time. And then my husband had this travel bug. And so we moved to Hong Kong, we married very young and we moved to Hong Kong in our mid twenties.
00:04:41
Speaker
And so he saw a job ad when we were there and he he thought, oh, McKinsey, I'd love to work for them. And he had a look at this advertisement and he said, oh, oh, that might be for you. And he showed me was like, oh, that looks fun. What's McKinsey? What's management consulting?
00:04:58
Speaker
Oh, okay. That sounds cool. yeah I think I'd like that more than what I'm doing right now. So, okay. So I applied and I got the job. And so I learned the structured communication techniques and disciplines that um that I use now then.
00:05:15
Speaker
And
Freelancing and Founding Clarity First
00:05:16
Speaker
that's formed the foundation of the sort of work that I do around how do you blend problem solving and communication so you can crystallize really clear and compelling message.
00:05:30
Speaker
And so that gave me the foundation. And then why did I start what I'm doing now is is a different question in a way. Initially, it was practical. You know, I was mum with young children, travelling. We moved through lots of different countries.
00:05:46
Speaker
And so I was freelancing. And so i was freelancing back to McKinsey to start with for a long time. I freelanced for them for about 15 years. And, you know, I did a range of things, including firm working for Firm Learning where I was training and coaching people.
00:06:01
Speaker
So it sort of emerged out of all of that and, you know, a blend of doing things for people and helping people do things. And I really like helping people do things. I just really enjoy it. So that's the teaching impulse, I suppose.
00:06:16
Speaker
But bring that together with working with now, you know, everyone from graduates through to the C-suite. I work typically now at the mid to senior levels with clients.
Evolution of Clarity First
00:06:27
Speaker
And right Clarity First also began as a little bit of an experiment, I guess, to start offering public programs. So when I first started the Clarity First program website, it was back in about 2017 and, you know, people were moving in the corporate sort of world towards a little bit of online learning and there were, you know, cohort-based programs that you could run online.
00:06:55
Speaker
um People were starting to sell online courses to people in corporates, not just, you know, and life coaching or, you know, how to, I don't know, take a better photograph or those sorts of things, which I think came first in this sort of online learning space, but rather corporate business skills.
00:07:12
Speaker
Right. So I wanted to explore that. And so gradually
Common Communication Pitfalls
00:07:18
Speaker
that's become my whole business to work with corporate clients, but also, um you know, with the public programs and then the the online courses and books as well.
00:07:28
Speaker
So I enjoy innovating. enjoy solving client problems. I enjoy trying to get better and better at what I do. So it's part of what keeps me doing something that could be argued as being the same thing for a long time.
00:07:41
Speaker
Right. But, but yeah, because you have that mix of clients, it feels and probably feels different all the time. Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah, most definitely. A personal question. Do you have a count of the number of countries you've lived in?
00:07:55
Speaker
Well, Australia, Hong Kong, New York, Tokyo, and the now Seattle. yeah right okay Yeah. But many places in Australia as well. Right. Sure.
00:08:06
Speaker
but um Many different reasons. Yeah. um So I'm curious if you see common threads of challenges either within industry or sectors or just kind of overall challenges.
00:08:25
Speaker
that show up when when when people call you for help. Beautiful. I think a common problem overall is what I call the operating rhythm around preparing important communication.
00:08:41
Speaker
And think what happens is people don't realize, leaders don't realize the importance of their role in setting their team up to draft messaging.
00:08:54
Speaker
They focus on documents. They don't focus on messaging. So what i encourage people to do is to think first about the outcome they need from their communication. So what is the communication strategy for this presentation, for this deck?
00:09:11
Speaker
And that might be really quick, right? Oh, we've we've got to get them to trust that everything's okay, everything's on progress. Or we need them to agree to adjust the way we're going forward a little.
Strategic Thinking in Communication
00:09:25
Speaker
We need them to decide. We need them to support us so we can actually deliver. You know, what is the outcome you want? And so sometimes that's really quick, but sometimes that's a lot of thinking work that the leader really needs to be involved in because if they don't get involved in that early, what happens is the team goes away and does their very best to draft something that will be useful And they use a whole lot of cues around them.
00:09:54
Speaker
What's been done before. Maybe there's a corporate template that they need to use. Maybe they think somebody else is a great communicator. They'll try and do it like they do. Maybe they'll just do what they've always done.
00:10:06
Speaker
You know, theyll they'll do something and they'll send it up to their manager and their manager will open it up and go, right. You know, Mary's done a lot of really great work here. Mary and Fred and Bill, however many people, they've put a lot of effort into this and I really need to do it justice.
00:10:24
Speaker
So I can see the effect that's great, but I need time to think. I need time to think to really get into this and decide whether it hits the mark or not.
00:10:35
Speaker
Cause I can't see at first glance. So, okay, I'm back to back in meetings now for the next week. And it's not due just yet, so I'll get to it.
00:10:46
Speaker
And what happens is it waits, it lingers, and it lingers until it becomes urgent, maybe a day or two before it needs to be submitted or presented. And so the manager goes, right, I need to do that thing for Mary.
00:10:59
Speaker
And they open it up at 9 o'clock at night or maybe on Sunday afternoon. and they get into it and they're going through it and they say, right, there's loads of great stuff here, but they haven't crystallized the message.
00:11:11
Speaker
They're missing the strategic context. No, no, no, no, that's not right. Yeah, that's useful information, but we need to put it in its place. So they they get faced with a couple of choices.
00:11:22
Speaker
Time has now run out. So it's really hard to delegate it back, partly because they're also working out of hours. And this stuff typically happens out of hours, not always, but typically.
00:11:34
Speaker
And so, right, do i can I delegate it back? Maybe. If I do that, I'm going to put a few stickies on it or I'm going to put some comments in track changes.
00:11:45
Speaker
And nine times out of ten, they focus on the minutia. They don't focus on the real substance. they're trying to fix these little things, right? So that's one option. Another option is just to ask some questions and get information back.
00:11:59
Speaker
And, you know, to and fro like that. Another option is to redo it, and that's where people end up. They end up redoing it. So what happens is leaders end up doing their team's work for them, not because their team can't, but because their team hasn't been set up to know how.
00:12:15
Speaker
right And so that's a common problem that I see everywhere, which is why I wrote Engage.
Time-saving Through Strategic Preparation
00:12:21
Speaker
And I wrote the partner book that goes with that called Elevate, which is for the leader.
00:12:26
Speaker
So I wrote two books in parallel, which I think is a sure sign of madness. Yeah. All right? One for the individual contributor and one for the leader.
00:12:37
Speaker
And whether you're a manager of a team or you're a ceo the principal's in the Elevate book. are the same really. It's how do you set everyone up for success so that instead of receiving that draft document to review, you can set them up well and head them off in the right direction and allow room for evolving, you know, evolution during that time as well.
00:13:01
Speaker
And then you get given a draft, which is this one page message map and it's really structured and it's really easy to get to the message. So even if you open it up at the end of your day, or maybe, you know, at nine o'clock at night, you can see the message, you know, that you don't have to put hours aside, maybe 15 or 20 minutes, you can review it and you can go back and say, look, I've made a few adjustments here and here and here, here's why.
00:13:29
Speaker
Or you can say, look, let's have a call. I think we need to rethink this or actually what I meant was, can you have another go? So you're setting yourself up to be able to contribute really constructively and be part of that dialogue around what is the messaging that we need here to drive progress in the business.
00:13:52
Speaker
yeah And it changes the nature of it because i think another thing happens with these one pages, people are really happy to roll up their sleeves and talk about it, you know, discuss.
00:14:05
Speaker
Whereas when somebody sends you a document that they've sweated, you're treading on eggshells a little bit because you know that they've put a lot of effort into it and you're put into a position where you've become a critic yeah rather than a collaborator.
00:14:21
Speaker
Right. Right. And that's, that's no fun for everybody. It's like, Oh, how do i do that delicately? How do i not stomp on all of the good stuff they've done?
00:14:32
Speaker
how do i work with them, you know, during office hours as much as you can to get a a really collaborative and constructive outcome?
00:14:44
Speaker
Right.
Client Success with Strategic Communication
00:14:45
Speaker
You start at least the engage book, which I have here yeah kind of making an argument that I make a lot as well, which is it may sound like doing this message map, you know, upfront is going to cost you time because you're not writing the document right away.
00:15:03
Speaker
yeah But in the long run, you're actually going to save a ton of time because you have done this outline. So can you talk a little bit about that that aspect of this? Because I can totally imagine the Elevate book, which which I don't have next to it, but I could imagine that's probably a big part of that, which is like, look, you're going to you as a CEO, as the president, you're going to save a lot of time, even though maybe it doesn't feel like that right now.
00:15:26
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I think the hard thing for the leaders is to get their heads into the topic early. You know, it's so much easier to react to something. I think that's what tends to happen. And people are moving at pace quite a lot.
00:15:40
Speaker
But I think what I encourage people to do is think about time a bit differently. And think so if you think about the feeling of time, which, you know, you you feel productive, you feel like you're making progress when you you know, you you got that request to prepare that update and it's like, okay, right.
00:16:00
Speaker
um Roll sleeves up, start typing. You feel like you're doing something. So it feels like I'm on it, I'm doing. um So it's that feeling that's deceptive, I think.
00:16:12
Speaker
If you start to think about time as the time you start preparing to the time you get a result, as opposed to the time you start preparing and the time you hit send, you get a very different view of time.
00:16:30
Speaker
So even with emails that, you know, very rarely would you prepare a one page message map for an email, but the same principles of a really short introduction, one highly visible main message that's maybe bold with white space around it, so you can see it, it's obvious, and a small number of supporting points, that principle applies to email as well. And I had a wonderful example late last year when I spoke with a client and they put, they used the technique to write an email and then um he emailed me back later on.
00:17:05
Speaker
And he said
Importance of Outlining for Adults
00:17:06
Speaker
to me, oh my gosh, I sent this request to Deborah. I think her name was Deborah. And um normally she would say, you know, okay, can we have a chat about that?
00:17:20
Speaker
And we have a couple of 30 minute conversations. And then she'd go, yeah, all right. This time we spent that bit of time, you know, thinking about the message for the email. I sent the email and she came back within 20 minutes it said, okay, thanks.
00:17:37
Speaker
ah That was it. You know, he sort of went, huh, okay. but You know, I've never had that before. I wonder if it's just a problem of people... not outlining. I mean, this is the thing i always talk when when I talk about presentations, right? Like start by outlining and sketching and, you know, you know essentially my version of of your message map, right? um and And the line that I always tell people is like we're taught to write an outline on our first book report back in like fourth grade, right? Like we have to write an outline before the teacher lets us write the thing.
00:18:10
Speaker
Do you think we as adults just forget that? Is it just like, we've got to get to the next thing. We think we're so organized, but we're not like. I think it's more than that. I think it's more than that. I think it's how do you outline and it's what do you outline? Even more importantly, it's what do you outline?
00:18:29
Speaker
Because that strategy piece, you know, thinking about that outcome that you want very often when I work with people on, let's think about, you know a significant communication, let's say,
00:18:40
Speaker
I might have a two-hour coaching session with some people who've learnt the techniques through workshops that I've given them, let's say. And so we have a two-hour coaching session together and we really get into this strategy thing.
00:18:52
Speaker
And they've, of course, got to tell me about what the story's about, you know, what what do we need, who are we communicating
Decision-making and Clear Communication
00:18:58
Speaker
to. So we've got to go through that process, ah which they need to do for themselves anyway.
00:19:03
Speaker
Yeah. But I might need a little bit of extra context because I'm out of context. So allowing for that, sometimes we'll take 90 minutes out of two hours to really nail who it is that matters on that decision-making body, steering committee, leadership team, board, who is a couple of people that matter the most?
00:19:26
Speaker
Have we got inside their heads yet? Are they going to be for or against what we're putting forward? Why? What are their issues? Really drilling into that so that once that is clear, then we can say, right, we can then step forward and say, okay, well, now we know broadly what we need to say. Whereas because people go to outlining and they actually don't really know what they need to say.
00:19:54
Speaker
yeah They also have a habit, I find, of putting down topics of conversation rather than messages Oh, interesting. And they don't understand how to connect the messages to each other so that together it's a really cohesive, coherent story.
00:20:17
Speaker
Yeah. so decision makers want to be able to see the message really fast. So most business communication is, you know when you're getting a decision is about explaining yourself.
00:20:35
Speaker
Now it's got to be persuasive. It's got to be the right tone. You've got to be careful not to be too strong or too weak. You know, you've got to factor in emotion to that sort of extent.
00:20:47
Speaker
But ultimately, people want to be able to make a good decision quickly. yeah Factoring in the context and the stakeholders and, you know, all of the corporate stuff that goes around it, but they want to be able to make a good decision quickly. What they don't want is to spend quite some time trying to understand the pre-read, coming to the meeting with a whole lot of please explain questions, clarification questions.
00:21:15
Speaker
yeah Can you explain that to me? Can you explain that to me? And then at the end, sending people off with more questions. Yeah. Right.
Quick Decisions in High-stakes Scenarios
00:21:23
Speaker
They want to be able to understand the pre-read if there is one, if not, they want to really quick presentation that's crisp and clear without somebody reading through every slide.
00:21:38
Speaker
It's like, no, no, no, no. Just tell me what this is about so we can have a proper conversation, debate the issue, get the decision and move on. Or, I was at a conference um last week in Houston and one of the people there said to me, he had, I think he was originally given 20 minutes to put forward. Like it was like $170 million dollars request.
00:22:03
Speaker
It's a big, big request. yeah And so he had 20 minutes to pitch it and he got in and they said, really sorry, you've got two minutes. And he went, okay.
00:22:15
Speaker
And he could do it because he was messaging was so clear. So he pitched it in, he said 90 seconds and said, okay, do we agree then? And the chairman of the board said, hang on, that's my job.
00:22:26
Speaker
yeah But he got his decision. yeah So, and I think one of the stories I share in the book is with an old colleague and client of mine, Mike, where he said to one of his team, look, just put it on a page.
00:22:42
Speaker
You know, you've got the deck, but, you know, you've got the the the all the messaging on at the beginning. And they went into the meeting together with, I forget if it was a client or a boss, and the boss said, oh, good, I can see what you mean there. That's great. Love it.
00:22:56
Speaker
Off you go then. Please do what you said you want to do.
Trust Dynamics and Message Clarity
00:23:00
Speaker
And the Amy was her name, the person working with my my colleague, was like, what? What? Don't you want to see?
00:23:07
Speaker
Don't you want to see everything? these things. Don't you want to see that? he's like, no, if you can make it as clear and compelling as that, it's obvious to me you've done thinking.
00:23:18
Speaker
It's obvious you've done your thinking. And I know you. I trust you. You're thorough. I can't see any holes in that. Go do it. yeah Next thing. you know It's interesting. i you You said the word trust, and I have that ah noted on my on my notes here. and i And I wonder how often you run into issues of trust between the manager and and their staff.
00:23:42
Speaker
<unk>ho And is it, you know, how much of it is trust and how much of it value? kind of the kind of, I think the practical core of the book, which is, you know, how do you outline your, your message and and all this that we've been talking about? But I guess my question would be, do you run into cases when you're working with clients where there's just a total lack of trust between groups and building that trust is a big part of the challenge you need to help them overcome?
00:24:11
Speaker
Yes. Yeah, I think it's it's actually quite common. I don't think it's surfaced very often. don't think it's delivered as the key issue. But I did have one client, again, at the very end of last year, which is very convenient for the conversation we're having, who...
00:24:29
Speaker
I was emailing with the leader while I worked with some of his team in a highly, highly technical area of technology products, very senior product managers in technology.
00:24:40
Speaker
yeah And the manager came back and said, you know, my problem with the original draft that he gave you was that I, it doesn't look to me like they know what they're doing. Yeah.
00:24:56
Speaker
Right? So if you present material that is all over the place and it's just data, data, data, it's not tied together to pull together a cohesive structured
Visual Message Mapping
00:25:08
Speaker
message.
00:25:09
Speaker
Right. Your decision maker has to work far too hard to work out what's being said. They want to know why that is. Nobody wants to work intellectually very hard. Everyone wants it to be easy. Right?
00:25:22
Speaker
Yeah, sure. So, and there's biology to that. But, you know, we we have to make it easy for our decision makers to understand what we're saying.
00:25:33
Speaker
Otherwise, they have to do too much work. They're frustrated with you for not doing that work, that thinking work. And it does erode trust because they think if you know your your stuff, you should be able to say it.
00:25:45
Speaker
Right. And so if you can't say it, maybe you don't know it. Yeah. And so, yeah, I think trust becomes, you know, A very big issue, but I don't think it's one that people will confess very often. Right. I guess it's, it's a subtle difference. The way you framed it, at least was it's not that I don't trust you as a person, as an individual, um because I hired you and you're still working here and you do good work.
00:26:15
Speaker
You said, I don't, it's kind of like, I don't trust your ability to effectively communicate to me, which is. Although it does bring competence questions also. Sure. Right. Sure. right So it it does create competence questions.
00:26:28
Speaker
yeah And, you know, we we hire people and we we hope that they're going to be able to do what we want them to do, right but they can't always. So does raise questions, I think.
00:26:41
Speaker
I think it eradicates confidence. Yeah, for sure. yeah um When you talk about the message map in the book, there are lots of really good images of examples and ways to sort of structure it.
00:26:52
Speaker
And I'll let people buy the book so that they can get the get the template for themselves. But I'm curious, but because you've already sort of talked about a few different ways in which the message maps are kind of used, email versus document.
00:27:06
Speaker
And I'm curious how much the the look or the visual the map actually matters for people. Yes, yes. So I don't think people tend to visualize, send the one pager very much as an email, although they might sometimes.
00:27:21
Speaker
They might. I think in some contexts where clients are using it all at once and learning it together, it becomes symbolic.
Adapting Message Maps
00:27:29
Speaker
Hey, I'm doing the thing like we've agreed we're going to do. So it can be symbolic in that regard when you're sending by email. I think in email, you take the principles that underpin it.
00:27:41
Speaker
yeah And probably use it in that way. um So I think visualizing a message is really key. So one of the reasons I think the way we do the one pager is so helpful is because it makes it very easy to navigate the hierarchy of the messaging.
00:28:01
Speaker
So we have a panel, just a small panel on the left, which allows for a short introduction, which again is a bit of a trap. People often want to dump a whole lot of information at the beginning. yeah that They think people need to know before they can understand.
00:28:15
Speaker
And then they lose everybody who then doesn't want to understand. you know So we make that physically small. So we use constraints. by the nature of the shape to push people to stick with the shape.
00:28:27
Speaker
So it's a short introduction in a small sort of panel on the left, but then we have a big box at the top with the main message in bigger font. So you can see, well, that's the main thing.
00:28:37
Speaker
If yeah all you do is read that, that's the thing. That's the engine of the whole story. And then below that, we have some boxes which have got the next level down in the hierarchy and they look smaller than the main message but bigger than the ones below and then you go down another level.
00:28:55
Speaker
So visually, it makes it very easy to see where things belong, makes it very neat. It's a bit like, have you heard of that woman Marie Kondo? Yeah. Yeah.
00:29:05
Speaker
Marie Kondo for your thinking. Yeah. Everything's in a place. And so even if you don't understand the principles, you know, at a great depth that underpin it, it's pretty easy to go, Oh, that doesn't belong there. Why is that there? Oh, that's,
00:29:20
Speaker
I don't, you know, they're not the same. Right. ah This isn't persuading me. I think we need more on that topic. You know, it's very easy to sort of comment and contribute on the messaging and it forces you to get up out of the weeds unless you do what one of my engineering clients said was, oh, that one page a thing.
00:29:42
Speaker
Yeah. and we We liked it, yeah but we solved it for you because it really didn't work for us. So you said 10 point font minimum, and four, four is much better. for And we need like a two.
00:30:00
Speaker
So you've just made a document that's way harder to read. Correct. Correct. Cause we couldn't get it. We couldn't. Right. We
Challenges in Core Messaging
00:30:07
Speaker
couldn't fit it. So yeah yeah but so think about hierarchy with like a tree.
00:30:13
Speaker
You know, that's what I'm encouraging people to do. so you've got your main message at the top of the tree. You've got then a small nut, two to five ideas below, and then you keep unpacking as you, go and you go down as far as you need. i mean, if you're writing a book, the tree's very deep, but it's still limited at the top to one and then no more than five.
00:30:33
Speaker
Right. Right. and Go as deep as you like. So, um, Yeah, I think the visual aspect of that is is really important. And when you then translate that in into...
00:30:46
Speaker
a PowerPoint presentation. Sometimes the one page is enough. You get your decision. You don't need a deck. yeah Great. right um That might disappoint people who love making decks, but you know, a lot of people just want to get the decision. So one pager might be enough.
00:30:59
Speaker
May not. If not, okay. So then you've got to make a deck. So you structure the deck around that messaging, right? So it becomes a one for one match.
00:31:10
Speaker
You have a title page, you have a short introduction for maybe a page, then you have your executive summary with your main message and your top line points, and then you unpack it section by section.
00:31:22
Speaker
And it's driven by the messaging. If you have to use a template and you've got sections that are mandated, you've got like a mini story for each section.
00:31:32
Speaker
So that's fine. That's great. But again, within each section, your main message is the main thing. Yeah. And you're breaking it out below. So the hierarchy of the ideas becomes important.
00:31:43
Speaker
And then within that, you might also say, actually, I need to visualize that as a framework. Yeah. Five steps. Right, or right. yeah I don't want just one, two, three, four, five, you know, and words.
00:31:56
Speaker
Maybe I want to make it go by time and it be a flow or maybe it's some other interconnection of things that you want to visualize. So you do that, but you're doing it within the confines of the message and the structure of the messaging. So then so the visualization is important to that level.
00:32:15
Speaker
But also then in a prose or a word document too, you know, if you look in the book, you'll see that if you skim it, if you just flip it, the more important ideas, you can just thumb it and you can get the general idea of the whole story very quickly right because they're bigger font. In my case, they're blue, they're colored.
00:32:37
Speaker
um There are so many more layers. So it's a book, there have to be more layers. So
Forward-thinking Strategies in Communication
00:32:41
Speaker
there needs to be more differentiation for the layers for the formatting, but you can skim it to see the story because it's all directly linked to the messaging.
00:32:54
Speaker
So I do want to get to to Word before we finish, but um to Microsoft Word, but um is your experience working with folks to do the to do this exercise?
00:33:06
Speaker
ah What is the biggest or most common challenge you see with folks? Is that they're kind of unable to drill down? Is it that they're, mean, yeah, I guess like what is the the thing that holds them back from being successful in this exercise?
00:33:23
Speaker
think it depends a bit according to the way their brains work. Right. So, and that can be clustered by industry and all type of role more than industry. I think yeah to generalize, to be really general. Yeah. It doesn't always work that way, but some people, so people who are really good at technical details, engineers, technology, people, people who've got some sort of very technical discipline, um,
00:33:53
Speaker
sometimes struggle to come up to tell the story, to say why those details matter, right? So I teach them to come out of the detail, but also to place those details in a commercial context, right?
00:34:10
Speaker
So it's like, why does that solution matter? What value is it going to bring? How's the decision going to be made? So there's a bit of that yeah in that very technical space.
00:34:23
Speaker
Where you've got people who get that intuitively. Yeah, got it, got it, got it. And they're very quick at coming up with the message. Sometimes I have to teach them to come into the detail and to be able to say, okay, why is that the right thing?
00:34:38
Speaker
Can you justify it? They jump from A to Z because they can just see it intuitively. Right, yeah. And they they struggle to sort of build the case, if you like, in it a different kind of a way.
00:34:49
Speaker
So it depends on the way their brains work. So my job is partly to intuit in a heartbeat what kind of help somebody needs and within a group, you know, how to explain things according to what, you know, the balance of the group needs because there'll be a mix within the group.
00:35:06
Speaker
Right. So I think it's it's that, but I think if you sort of say what is the most significant problem, it's really getting the strategy right for the communication to work out what it is that you need to say.
00:35:19
Speaker
he That isn't as obvious as it seems. Because people tend to focus on, i need to update, which means that you then tell them what you're doing yeah rather than what
Role of Track Changes and AI
00:35:32
Speaker
you need.
00:35:32
Speaker
Right. Right. So they tend to look back too much rather than looking forward. Oh, interesting. Right. And, you know, that that becomes. Oh, right. Yeah. OK. That's a light bulb. Yeah. you Light bulb for people. Well, I can also see it for the for the more technical folks who tend to be more in the weeds and like that's their place.
00:35:54
Speaker
Yeah, right. Exactly. Yeah. um Okay. So, ah so one last question for you, well actually two, but cause you spend a good chunk of the beginning of the book and we've talked about this a bit already, but like when are Microsoft track changes good?
00:36:09
Speaker
Oh, when are they good?
00:36:13
Speaker
You know, with the advent of ai well, yeah when are they good? I think we can insert AI in the process to reduce the need for them a little bit yeah by saying, you know, putting into Coparnit or something and saying,
00:36:26
Speaker
please get this to ah grade seven or grade eight, no more reading level. Yeah. yeah Using active language. So we can do that. So we can get rid of the need for track changes to fix those kinds of things.
00:36:41
Speaker
and We don't need that anymore, which is good news because it means that track changes can be used for the smart stuff. So my argument would be that track changes should be used very little.
00:36:52
Speaker
because the solution, it should be solved before you get to the document, right? The combination of the message map and AI to fine tune your expression.
00:37:03
Speaker
right um Track changes, I think, and this is the first time I've been asked this question, okay? But very rarely now, okay right?
00:37:17
Speaker
yeah Because they keep you in the weeds. Yeah, for sure. For sure. It's like in a contract, in a legal contract or something, you know, documenting that kind of thing. Sure. yeah Yeah.
00:37:28
Speaker
Right. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. No, it is interesting how the piece does kind of change a lot of this calculus, right? Because yeah, you can have this really technical document and then if you want to have it for another person or another audience or whatever, yeah, you can just feed it in and say,
00:37:49
Speaker
you know, like you said, make this a seventh grade reading level and then go back in and and sort of finish and polish it up. Yeah. It does, does change things. Yeah. Um, don't well, sort of jump into what you said there though. yeah I think that the seven or eight reading levels essential for CEOs and board directors too. Right.
00:38:07
Speaker
So I think that's, I think pretty healthy level for everybody. If you're changing who you're sending it to AI might help you think about what to say, but it doesn't help you know what to say.
00:38:19
Speaker
That's right. Right. Right. Right. Because that's the thing. That's the bit that the humans actually have to do. The humans have
Conclusion and Contact Information
00:38:24
Speaker
to do still. Yeah. um Until the terminators take over, then a whole different story. Yeah, exactly. Anyway.
00:38:29
Speaker
yeah um Devana, thank you so much. um The book is Engage and it's cousin book, Elevate. Folks listening to the show have their own challenges communicating. How can they find you? How can they get in touch to get help with their teams?
00:38:44
Speaker
Beautiful. So my website is clarityfirstprogram.com. And if they like what they hear and they want to dip their toe in the water just a little bit, if they go to clarityfirstprogram.com slash emails, I've got a better emails in 10 minutes course.
00:39:03
Speaker
So they might find that useful. And obviously the book goes a lot further than that, but that would get them started very quickly. Terrific. Thank you so much for coming on the show.
00:39:14
Speaker
I really appreciate it. This was a lot of fun. My pleasure, John. Great to speak with you.
00:39:19
Speaker
Thanks for tuning in, everybody. Hope you enjoyed the show. Be sure to check out Devona's website, Clarity First. Also, her books, Engage and Elevate. And, of course, take a minute or two of your day to rate or review the podcast. Really, really appreciate it. You can go to any of your podcast providers to do so. If you're watching it on YouTube, be sure to subscribe. Give me a thumbs up so that I know folks are out there and listening to the show each and every other week.
00:39:45
Speaker
Okay, that's all I've got for this week's episode of the show. Until next time, this has been the Policy of His podcast. Thanks so much for listening.