Less Chatter, More Matter: The Communications Podcast

#120 7 tips on making your comms easier for everyone to understand

• Mel Loy • Season 1 • Episode 120

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Clear communication isn’t about using big words or sounding clever. It’s about making sure your message lands. 

In this episode of Less Chatter, More Matter, we are sharing 7 practical tips to help you simplify your communication so it’s easier for your audience to understand and act on.

Whether you're dealing with senior leaders, change-resistant teams, or complex topics that need breaking down, these tips will help you bring more clarity, confidence and cut-through to your message.

We’ll talk about how to:

  • Ditch jargon without losing credibility
  • Use structure to your advantage
  • Leverage visuals (and even AI tools) to enhance understanding
  • Avoid common clarity-killers in your writing and presentations

So, in the interest of simplifying the complex - if you’ve ever been told your message is “too long,” “too technical,” or “not quite clear”, this one’s for you.

Tune in now and start making your comms easier to understand.

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Imagine this, you are working on a big juicy change project. This isn't just a little process change, but a complete transformation of the systems, processes, ways of working, roles and responsibilities in the organisation. And, you need to get the executive up to speed on what's happening and why, so they'll continue to fund the program. Or maybe you work in a really technical field and you have a business case to put forward for funding a piece of work that's going to be critical to the future of the organisation. You spend hours putting together the presentations, business cases, briefing notes, et cetera, et cetera, and then you share it all with the senior leaders. And then, well, best case scenario, you get no response. Worst case scenario, your request is soundly rejected. What happened? Why couldn't they see how important this work is? Well, there's a good chance the way you communicated was the challenge for strategic communicators. One of our core skills we need to develop is making the complex simple. If we can't do that, we don't actually communicate. We just broadcast and hope it sinks in. So how do we make the complex simple? Well, that's what today's episode is all about. Music. Hello, friend, and welcome to this week's episode of Less Chatter More Matter, the communications podcast. I'm your host, Mel Loy, and I'm recording this on the lands of the Yuggera and Turrbal people here in Meanjin, also known as Brisbane. And today's episode is all about one of the core skills of effective

communication:

Making the complex simple. I've been working with a few clients lately to help them understand why the way they're presenting information isn't going to cut it and helping them to simplify. It's all to do with putting your audience hat on, putting your audience at the centre of your communication. Too often we succumb to the curse of knowledge, and we forget that our audience doesn't have the technical expertise, experience, or the context that we have to be able to understand what we communicate. And sometimes they just don't care. The problem with communicating from your perspective and not your audience's perspective is that you will miss the mark and you will significantly reduce your chances of getting what you want. And that happens because we tend to be overly complex for our audience's level of understanding. It's not that they're not intelligent people, they just haven't got the level of knowledge that you do on that particular subject. And I see this all the time. If you as the project manager or change manager, can't simply and succinctly explain what's happening, why it's important and what it means for your audience, then you're going to find it really hard to get any buy-in and support. So how do we do it? Well, today I'm going to share seven tips to make your communication much easier for everyone to understand. Let's get into it. Tip number one, use visuals thoughtfully. We've talked about this a little on the podcast over the last few years, but visual comms is so, so critical to getting people to understand your message quickly. We process images really, really fast, which means we can make sense of an image much faster than something we've heard or something that we've read. And you know that saying a picture tells a thousand words. It's absolutely true. When we know most people learn more by seeing them, by hearing, it pays to make your message visual. So how can we do that? Well, firstly, for example, could you replace a timeline or a process with a graphic instead? One that helps people follow the chain of events. And not only is this more engaging than a list of numbered steps, but it's much easier for people to understand quickly and also therefore, remember it. Uh, perhaps you can use another type of diagram, like a Venn diagram, a matrix, or even a decision tree to help summarise the key points or the steps. And the great part about creating a great visual is that people tend to keep referring back to it. I've seen executives keep that one page visual and stick it next to their computers or carry it around with them to meetings. It becomes a really handy reference tool. Remember this about your audience. Not only do they not have the depth of context that you have, but they're also extremely time poor, especially senior leaders. So if you can present the information in a one page really engaging graphic, rather than in a five or 10 page document, you are much more likely to reach them anyway. Now, a few points on visuals though, or perhaps more words of warning. Icons are great. I love them. You can use them to signpost, all those sorts of things, but avoid using too many of them. It's what I call Icon Palooza. I was looking at a client slide that the other day, and one slide was just honestly so overwhelming. There was lots of icons used, but none of them were actually the same, so it was really hard to understand what was what, what was the purpose of those icons. Instead, have a few select ones and assign a meaning to them and use them to group like ideas together or categorise different elements. That way at a glance, your audience can easily pick out the things that relate to each other, which these are the second point. Images need to have meaning. And they need to be consistent. Just chucking in a few pictures and icons, et cetera, because you think it looks pretty, doesn't help the audience to grasp the message. The next point of visuals is using colours thoughtfully as well. So what you don't want is your visual looking like somebody's just tipped a whole heap of paint cans on there. Colours should also have meaning. So for example, you might group all the roles and responsibilities relating to a particular team. Or a project in one colour so it shows that they're part of the same group. The great part about using colour in this way as well is when you are presenting, you can easily point to like look at the orange section in the blue section is this, for example, and it really helps people follow it very quickly. And finally on visuals. I know I've said this before, but I'm gonna say it again. One chart, one story. Whether you are using a line graph, a bar chart, a pie chart, I don't care, whatever. Think about the one story you want that graph to tell. I. And then highlight it. So for example, you might have a bar chart with five bars in it, showing data from different teams, but you really want the audience to hone in on Team B. They're the story. So make the rest of the bars a light gray and make Team B's data bar chart, a bright yellow, for example, to make it really shine through. Okay. Tip number two for making the complex simple, reframe your information into terms that are more meaningful for people. Reframing basically means you take the same information you've written or that's in your head, and make it more tangible and easily understood by your audience. So, for example, instead of asking team members to volunteer for 10 hours a year for your corporate social responsibility program, ask them to volunteer for just one hour a month. And that research consistently shows that reframing goals or asks into small amounts can significantly increase long-term participation. Reframing can also involve putting an idea or concept into terms that are more relatable or tangible for your audience. There is a great example out of Chip Heath and Carla Starr's book Making Numbers Count. Please read that book. It's amazing. But in this example that they use, the original text reads, 28% of UK men do not always wash their hands after using the bathroom at work. Okay. That's pretty gross, but okay. It's hard to relate to because 28% is a bit nebulous and it talks about these men doing it. It doesn't talk about anybody else, so it's hard to relate. So how does this feel once we've reframed the message? At least one in four of men you shake hands with at work may not have washed their hands between using the toilet and touching your hands. That probably makes that statistic a lot more real for you because it's talking about you, it puts you in that situation, and it's a number that is much easier to grasp as well. So reframing is really great for complex technical or scientific information, especially information that uses numbers. So think about some comms you might be working on right now. Is there a way you could reframe some of your points into more tangible, relatable messages? Okay. Number three is use analogies. It's similar to reframing. Yes, in that we're taking something that seems foreign and putting it into relatable terms, but we do that by drawing comparisons with another situation or an object. So, for example, if you are talking to people about climate change, it can be really hard for people to fathom why it's important, even how it's work, much less how it's going to impact them. So you could use an analogy like this to explain rising sea levels. Imagine a jug half filled with water and you drop in a dozen ice cubes. At first, nothing really changes, and as the ice cubes melt slowly, the water rises a little, but so slowly you don't notice much. But as more ice cubes melt, the water becomes warmer, so the cubes melt faster and the water rises more rapidly until eventually it spills over the edge of the jug. That jug is like the earth's oceans and the ice cubes are the polar ice caps and glaciers, and eventually that water will spill into your home. Now interestingly, researchers found that when we can explain complex information, particularly scientific information in more simple terms, not only do people understand it better, but they're more likely to remain interested in the topic. When people don't understand it, people tend to lose interest, and sometimes they even think they're not smart enough to understand it, so they disengage entirely. Now, you might not be explaining something scientific, so perhaps it's your new strategy. And an analogy that was rolled out many times a few years ago was the story of the film and camera company, Kodak. So if you don't remember them, they were massive back in the day. They had stores everywhere, but they made a fatal error. One of their employees brought to them an early prototype of the digital camera. And the executives passed on it. They thought it would never take off, that people would always use film and traditional cameras, and of course they were wrong, and that company has since orbit disappeared. It's a great analogy about what happens when companies don't move with the times, don't take well-planned risks and sit in the status quo for too long. Closely related to analogies and metaphors, which are also great to get people to understand a strategy. So for example, right now I'm working with a client who has a brand new five year organisational strategy as well as an all new exec team. So basically everything is changing. We've used the metaphor of building a house to explain the strategy in a very simple and visual way, and it also relates to their new brand. And what they do at the house. So it's about getting the foundations right, having strong supporting pillars, et cetera, et cetera. So again, think about something you're working on right now. Maybe it's a strategy, a change program, a piece of research. Is there an analogy or metaphor that you could use to make it meaningful for people? Okay, tip number four is create a cheat sheet. What is that? I hear you asking. Well, for years now, I've been creating one page strategies on a page for executives that succinctly and visually outline the change comm strategy we're using for a project. The cheat sheet is a bit of an extension on that, and I've been using it primarily in the workshops that I facilitate. It's typically for me at least, a double-sided, A three, and it captures all the high level concepts that we go through during the training. So this key visuals included a very short synopsis of the key concepts, et cetera. People can refer to it throughout the workshop. It helps 'em follow along. They can make notes on it, of course, but it also importantly becomes a handy reference after the workshop. Now, why does it work so well? Well, everyone asks for the slides after workshop or webinar, right? Now, sometimes unfortunately, unfortunately, we can't share those slides for various reasons, but I also wonder how many people actually go back and refer to them. And also if there's a lot of content, a lot of slides, it takes a lot to wade through that slide deck to get to where you want to go. And if you've done a great presentation, those slides will have very little on them anyway because they should just be a visual or a few points. So they're largely unhelpful anyway as a reference. A cheat sheet therefore becomes not only a useful tool well into the future, but it also simplifies the entire workshop down into the core elements that people need to understand and remember. So I highly recommend adding that to your toolkit. Okay. Tip number five is to use a clear structure to your communication. Without structure, it's really easy to go off on tangents or include irrelevant information, and it's much harder for your audience to follow along and understand your message. So a structure will help you simplify your thoughts and chunk them down into key sections that are much easier to make sense of. If you've been listening to me for a while, you, or you've read my books, you'll know I bang on about structure a bit. So I won't go into it too much here. I'll save you that. But a few of my favourite structures are the what, so what, now what. Another one is past, present, future. So what happened in the past? Where are we now? Where do we need to be? And the inverted pyramid, which comes from my journalism days. So that's where you start with the most important message or the story angle. And then you get into the five Ws and the H. So the who, what, when, where, why, and how. And then you finish with any incidental information that could be safely ignored. If you need to cut it off, you could. So that's number five, using a structure. Number six. And one of the most important tips I have for simplifying the complex is about the language you use. Keeping it simple is not dumbing it down. And while we might enjoy high literacy rates worldwide these days, the fact is that the level of literacy within that varies greatly. So for example. Here in Australia, only 15% of people have a literacy level of four to five, which means a postgraduate level of literacy. A whopping 44% of all Australians who are literate have just a level of one to two literacy, which is, is essentially the ability to understand short sentences and simple words only, and about 38% of people are at that level three in the middle, which equates to about a year, 11 or 12. And that's why the Australian Government Style Guide and the Worldwide Web Content Accessibility Guidelines recommend we communicate at a 14-year-old level according to the style guide. At that level, you will reach about 83% of people effectively if you pitch your language any higher. The level of understanding starts to drop off significantly and quickly. So what does all of this mean? Number one, ditch the jargon and the corporate speak. If you have to use technical terms, make sure you explain them in plain English. Don't just expect people to understand. An interesting point on that though, one piece of research found that even providing definitions of complex or unfamiliar terms didn't help readers to understand a piece of communication much more than when the terms weren't explained. So number two is an extension of that use plain English. So for example, instead of saying we are optimising our systems, say we are going to make the most of the systems we have. Now, side note, the word optimise is a pet hate of mine. It is overused and it's often just used as this vague, meaningless term to say, we know we're gonna do something to drive efficiency, but we're not really sure what. But anyway, that's a rant for another day. Okay, final tip. For today's episode is use AI to help. Now, assuming you're allowed to use AI tools at work and you're not drafting anything highly sensitive AI tools like Chat GPT or Google Gemini can be a great way to make complex things more simple. So, for example, ask it to come up with a metaphor or analogy for your complex new strategy or change program. I've done that before. Maybe paste in your copy and ask it to simplify it into plain English and five dot points. Or ask it to critique your work and give you ideas for how you can make it easier to understand. You can even use AI tools to help you come up with an infographic or a graph that better explains your key concepts. There are loads of applications for AI in simplifying complexity, and it's only getting better, so why not use it? Okay, folks, we've come to the end of our episode, which means it's time for your episode recap. So today we talked about the ways we can make our complex communications more simple and therefore more effective. And I shared seven ways to do this. Number one, use visuals thoughtfully. Icons, colour graphs, charts, and imagery can all be used to simplify complex messages into a visual that is quick and easy to understand. Number two, reframe your ideas into relatable terms, especially when it comes to numbers. Number three, use analogies and metaphors to explain your strategy or program in, or ideas in ways that are more tangible and relatable to your audience. Number four, create a cheat sheet. So summarise your key points in simple ways on a simple piece of paper. Number five, use structure. It helps you as the communicator stay on the right track and stick to the things that people need to know, and it helps your audience follow along. Number six, use simple language. Remember, write to the level of a 14-year-old to reach 83% of your audience. That means ditching the jargon and the corporate speak and using plain, simple English. And number seven, use AI to help with all of these tips. All right, friends, maybe you want to share this episode with somebody you think will find it useful. I would love it if you did. I would also love it if you just take a few minutes to become a reviewer on your app of choice. Just give the show a rating, leave a few words of encouragement, and that can help the show being found by more people. But it also helps me to know that it's a value to you as well. Helps us keep going here at Hey Mel! hq. And of course my new book is available on Amazon right now. Less Chatter, More Matter. It covers a few of these tips that I talked about today in a lot more detail with more of the research behind it, but also you get a toolkit that comes with the book as well. So you wanna get that. All right, team, have an amazing week. Keep doing amazing things, and I will talk to you again soon. Bye-bye for now.