How Executives Can Speak Clearly by Focusing on Action

If you're an executive, you're a founder, you're an entrepreneur, you're someone who's got a lot on your plate, you might be dealing with a lot of stress and a thousand things on your mind. One of the easiest ways that you can learn to speak clearly, and this is a question that I'm about to give you that has often been

recommended in many executive communication handbooks.

There's been many videos on YouTube talking about the same question, and it's the question that forces thought compression, and it's the following, which is, what do I want to happen in the real world because of my words or because of my idea?

And it forces you to think about agency, about what would change, what behaviors would change, what actions would be taken. And it's one of the most satisfying feelings that comes from good communication, which is the idea of forward momentum or some kind of progress being made because of what we say.

And so when we stop and we ask ourselves, I feel that there's all these emotions, these thoughts, these feelings, these contexts, these associations, these hormones inside of me that are causing this idea to feel like it's beyond words. We always stop and we ask ourselves,

what would I want to happen in the real world because of the idea in my head?

I would want someone to take this action.

I would want the sales team to build out this reporting pipeline.

I would want the revenue data on my desk by the end of the day.

There's something, there's some reason behind what you're sharing or what you're intending to share that isn't clear.

And oftentimes what good communicators know how to do is just shortcut the entire exploration, the entire side quest and get to the point and get to the point usually means some kind of action in the real world. So next time you're struggling to compress your thought, whether you're explaining an idea in a meeting or maybe just

casually ask yourself, what do you want to happen?

What is the behavioral changes you want to happen?

Sometimes it's just as clear as the other person understanding why this is important. I say this all the time.

I'm sharing something with you because I want you to understand how important this is for your life, whether you use it or not.

That's the agency. That's the change. And a person's ability to shortcut that and prune everything out is part of what makes them an elite communicator.