| Have you ever been sitting in a meeting and thought “this person just likes to hear themselves talk!”
I think we all have.
Painful is probably putting it too mildly.
The best coaches/leaders seem to err on the side of being concise, short, and to the point when they address their team.
Average leaders often have long-winded, repeat yourself 20 times in 7 minutes, type speeches.
Short, to-the-point, messages are the best way to communicate with your team.
Even though everyone has felt that pain, there are still a surprisingly high number of leaders who do exactly the same thing when they lead.
There are several reasons why leaders ramble on and on.
- They are not prepared. They don’t have clarity on the one or two points they need to drive home.
**Prepare. Spend time getting clarity on what the key points are and how you are going to frame and articulate those key points.
- They are verbal processors. They, by nature, have their best ideas as they are talking. So a verbal processor begins to hit on his/her main talking points then have another thought, then another, then another, then another…you get the point. By the time they are finished, the 3-minute meeting turned into a 20-minute meeting because they were essentially processing in front of their team.
**Land the plane. Know what you want to say then close your mouth. Too many verbal processors ‘circle the airport’ instead of take off (communicate main points) then land the plane.
- They think they have to address everything during every meeting. Most attention spans and capacities are about two to five minutes and one or two key points. To think that people are going to stay locked in beyond five minutes is not realistic (I’m guessing the leader can’t do this either). And yet leaders forget this and think they have to clean up every issue during every meeting.
**Prioritize what is key. If everything is important, then nothing is important!
Prepare. Hit on key area. Talk in sound bites (Maybe even share a short story). Land the plane.
***I am addressing the long-winded, rambling types of meetings. There are times when a longer meeting is necessary. It is okay to ask your team to lock in for a longer meeting…if that meeting is organized and systematic in how the information is delivered. |
