We hear hundreds or thousands of messages every day, all asking us to give up a bit of our time, attention, or money. It’s so constant, we’ve learned to mostly tune it out. If you’re trying to communicate a message, that’s a problem. In a world where people have developed mental earplugs, how do you cut through the noise to ensure you are heard?
For any presentation, I always ask students, “So what?” Why do I care about this? Why are you telling me? What can I do with this information? It’s so important, it’s the title of my book. As obvious as people find they question, the answer often eludes them.
For example, I provide regular feedback to folks providing status updates to their superiors, and the question is always the same. Whether a weekly synopsis, an informal email, a presentation, or a quarterly report, it always comes down to “so what?” Profits are down this quarter. So what? That’s bad, but why are you telling me other than just to pass on bad news? Half of the accounting department just quit. So what? A mass exodus is usually bad, but why is it bad, and how does it affect us?
To make an impact, always bring it back to the Three Ms: money, minutes, and me.
• Money: does your message allow the audience to accomplish their mission with fewer resources?
• Minutes: can your message enable your audience to do the same job in less time?
• Me: how can your message personally benefit your audience or something your audience cares about?
Usually, the real impact boils down to asking “so what” one more time than seems necessary.
Something like lower profits might seem obvious because less revenue is always bad, right? What if it’s a seasonal slump typical of your company’s industry and everyone sees lower profits then – but yours didn’t drop as much as the last five years? Now it’s a positive update. This is an obvious “money” takeaway, where you can communicate that, despite the drop, the outlook is actually better than the rest of the industry.
Likewise, what if the accounting department had been rife with corruption and deceptive practices, and the folks that left were doing so because they heard an outside audit agency was being brought in to investigate their practices? This is a “me” takeaway, where your audience will definitely want to know about liability and potential legal impacts.
Minutes impacts often take the form of more efficient processes. Imagine the message is “Mike on the ops floor figured out a better way to tune the CNC machine.” Ok, great. Mike is a fantastic operator, good for him. Why do I care. “As a result, we can produce seven percent more products in the same time.” Now we have a real impact.
The above examples may seem obvious from the comfort of a keyboard and perfect knowledge, but we all have a tendency to miss the point of what we’re telling people. This isn’t just about business cases, either. The same applies to interpersonal relationships. Think of a time you told a friend or spouse something they did that hurt you, and you became frustrated when they didn’t pick up how it affected you.
Your spouse looks at you and says, “Okay, so I didn’t put the tool back in the toolbox. Why are you telling me?”
“Well,” you say, “I was going to help Jeremy with his living room renovation, and I had put all the tools I needed in that toolbox to take with me. I didn’t know you used it after I laid everything out, so when you didn’t put it back, I didn’t have a pretty important tool we needed for the project.”
I’m sure you’re already putting your own lens on the story – either from the project help or the tool misplacer’s perspective, but the key point is there is still no impact.
Fortunately, your spouse is abundantly empathetic and replies, “I can see this upset you, and I am sorry if I hurt you in some way, but I still don’t understand why you’re telling me.”
“Not having the tool added an extra hour to the project because I had to come home and get it.” Now you’re putting a time impact on the message. For bonus points, you can add a clear call to action. “I don’t mind if you use any of my tools, but if you can’t remember where they go, please ask me, because I generally lay them out for a reason.”
This raises an important final point – discerning impact is not a skill exclusively reserved for presenters. Look back at the conversation about the misplaced tool and notice that the spouse asked “So what?” – if not in so many words. “I don’t understand why you’re telling me,” or, “I’m not sure what to do with this information,” or “And what is the takeaway from this,” are all ways that people try to politely communicate that they have no idea of the purpose behind your communication.
Entire books exist on effective, diplomatic ways to ask these kinds of questions, but if you find yourself on the receiving end of an impact-less message, here are a couple questions to ask that allow the speaker to expound without looking foolish.
“In your opinion, what is an effective way forward given what you’ve just told us?”
“Looking a few weeks down the road, what are the consequences if we don’t act on this information?”
“This is great, and I’d like to share it with a few other folks. Can you walk me through next steps in case they ask?”
As common to any communication, Three Ms is all about getting to why. If you can’t tie your message back to an impact for your listener, keep asking “So what?” until you get there.