Simple Is Strong – advice to writers, speakers, and leaders

I wrapped up a 4-part persuasive communications training last week.

It was a fun gig, very different from my usual training seminars.

Why?

Because I was hired to teach a group of postgraduate science students – quite the challenge, I can tell you.

I found they just weren’t as used to expressing themselves as the kinds of people I usually teach. You know, the comms people, public speakers, marketing people, and so on.

Anyway, my final session with them was called…

“Simple Is Strong.”

The message is pretty much what it says on the wrapper. But I wanted to take you through how you can actually apply this.

Simple is strong because simple is simple. Which means it takes less cognitive effort for your audience to understand. Less effort to understand means they follow your thoughts in a more relaxed state. Being more relaxed means they associate you (subconsciously) with good feelings. And associating you with good feelings means they’re more likely to agree with you.

And isn’t that the ultimate goal?

But here’s another reason:

In English, the simplest words are the short words. And the short words also tend to be the strong, concrete, easy-to-picture words.

I mean, you tell me which of these is easier to understand:

Option A (Taken from a paper published in the American Journal of Economics): For the most part bureaucracy grows in a haphazard fashion. What emerges at any given time may constitute and frequently does constitute a rather poorly constructed system.

Option B: For the most part red tape grows with no clear goal. What we see may be – and most of the time is – a lack of clear steps.

Now, the second isn’t a perfect translation of the first – that depends on what the original author intended by ‘a poorly constructed system.’

But that’s the whole point – simple is stronger and clearer. Now, if your goal is to deliberately obstruct and confuse (like Sir Humphrey in the classic British tv series, Yes Minister and Yes, Prime Minister), then by all means, use the long words, the passive voice, and talk around your subject.

But if your goal is communication, simplify.

Simplify.

Simplify.

How, I hear you ask?

Write it however you naturally write. Try to write too much. Then go back and edit.

Cut down what you don’t need. And polish – by which I mean simplify – what you do need.

It’s okay to write long and boring in stage one. But then your task is to look for the simple words.

The short words.

And I really do mean the short words. Here’s a piece that was published half a century ago today, that we’d all do well to re-read every time we have to write or speak:

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Advice to Scientists-in Words of One Syllable

When you come right down to it, there is no law that says you HAVE to use big words when you write or talk.

There are lots of small words, and good ones, that can be made to say all the things you want to say, quite as well as the big ones. It may take a bit more time to find them at first. But it can be well worth it, for all of us know what they mean. Some small words, more than you might think, are rich with just the right feel, the right taste, as if made to help you say a thing the way it should be said.

Small words can be crisp, brief, terse-go to the point, like a knife. They have a charm all their own. They dance, twist, turn, sing. Like sparks in the night they light the way for the eyes of those who read. They are the grace notes of prose. You know what they say the way you know a day is bright and fair-at first sight. And you find, as you read, that you like the way they say it. Small words are gay. And they can catch large thoughts and hold them up for all to see, like rare stones in rings of gold, or joy in the eyes of a child. Some make you feel, as well as see: the cold deep dark of night, the hot salt sting of tears.

Small words move with ease where big words stand still-or, worse, bog down and get in the way of what you want to say. There is not much, in all truth, that small words will not say-and say quite well. ~ JOSEPH ECCLESINE

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Go back and read Option B, and you’ll notice it uses only words of one syllable.

Your whole speech doesn’t need to be one syllable words – but it wouldn’t be a bad speech if it were.

Here endeth the lesson.

Talk soon,

Alexander

P.S. Want some help with simple strength in your next talk, speech, or presentation? Want to talk about how I can help train you or your people to do the same? Send an email to [email protected] and let’s talk.