If you’re a leader, you’ve probably thought about how to hold your team to a higher bar at least once this month. The bar is usually related to measurable performance.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about a different kind of bar: the concision bar.

We live in an age where everyone is competing for attention. The macro effects of this are evident even in our meetings—if we don’t make our point quickly, we lose our audience.

We think about this a lot as leaders in the context of our own performance. The truth is, though, members of high-performing teams must all be effective communicators—not just the leaders. But feedback around concision and communication style can be really difficult to deliver well.

Most of us have a pretty good radar for when we’re rambling. But many of us lack the tools needed to right the ship. One simple thing we can do as leaders when someone on our team has lost the plot is, when they’re finished, ask:

“Can you summarize that for me so I can be sure I understand?”

I don’t know about you, but I’m always grateful for the chance (and the gentle prod) to try again—this time, with more concision.

Happy weekend,

Raman

📚 What’s made me a better storyteller this week

✨ What I’m trying next week

You know those ~5-10 minutes before your next call that are usually a productivity dead zone? When you’re too focused on the last thing you were doing to really prep for your next call, but also too eager for the next call to start anything new?

For calls that require me to hook my audience—get them excited about a problem, bought in on a solution, or aligned on a path forward—I’ve started recording a practice run. Nerdy? Yes. Helpful? Also yes. I just pop my phone up, hit record, and see how much fat I can trim off of the core idea I’m sharing. Try it out just once—trust me.