How to speak more clearly like the 1%

When a McKinsey partner, a  critical thinking educator, and a Stanford methodology all refer to the  same thinking principle, I know I have to pay attention. That principle translates  into a two-step process that takes vague, blurry thoughts and turns them into coherent  and clear ideas. So let's get to it.

**Step number one**: The number one  reason I see smart, brilliant people getting stuck with frameworks, structured  thinking, and articulation is that they skip step number one, which is unstructured  articulation. It sounds counterintuitive, but the first step is taking those fuzzy,  vague thoughts and turning them into words—translating them into something we  can understand. Forget about hierarchies, conciseness, and clarity—all of that doesn't  matter because step number one is just figuring out what is even in my head.

Since thoughts are  just electric signals passing through our neurons, we don't even know what we're thinking  half the time. So, step number one really is about translating those signals into  words that we ourselves can understand first. Put another way: If you don't know what you're  thinking, no amount of structure, frameworks, and logic can help get your point across because  your thoughts are still in electric signal form.

So how do you translate signals into words? I  use the method taught by a McKinsey partner, which is to set a timer for one minute and just  write down what's on your mind. For example, I used to do a lot of data analysis and research  presentations for executives—so the thoughts that go through my mind in that one minute are: How  much detail should I include?

What are the key points? What do the executives care about? How  much context should I give?

What if I'm missing something critical? Are my conclusions even strong  enough to drive decision-making? One minute goes by fast, but once you do that, you'll see this  simple journaling exercise does a few things.

**Number one**: I know what I'm actually thinking  because before I start thinking about needing to present, I just feel an overwhelming sense of  confusion that I can't even articulate. But by writing things down, I realize, "Okay, I'm worried  about context. These are the things I think are the key points, but I don't even know if they're  going to resonate with the executives.

" So I can really see, "What am I actually thinking? What is  causing all this confusion in the first place? " **Number two**: I can think deeper.

All of those  superficial-level thoughts are cluttering my mind, but now I have them on paper, so I can  decide, "Okay, out of these, which ones do I want to work on? Which ones do I have deeper  thoughts about? " and really work through that.

**Number three**: This helps me think fast on my  feet. One minute goes by in a flash, so having that time constraint really helps me focus and  do that translation as quickly as possible, which is invaluable when you're thinking on your  feet, answering questions, or talking on the go. Now, just a side note: One minute is quite  fast.

This is the management consulting way, and if it doesn't work for your context, that's  all right. In the critical thinking book I mentioned earlier, they talk about free writing,  which is ten minutes long. Again, not that long, but it gives you some more space to work through  the thoughts in your head.

Alternatively, you can take the Stanford design thinking  approach, where, when you diverge and think, you give yourself one minute, five  minutes, just to get all the ideas out, and you want to repeat step one: This process  of setting a time constraint and listing out what you're thinking, translating the  thoughts as many times as you need. Going back to my example of how to  present the findings of the research, one of my questions was, "How do I know what the  executives care about? " Let's take that and go one more minute on this.

Okay, I think what they  really care about is making a good decision. So, all I have to do is present both sides of the  argument and give them my recommendation. What is my recommendation?

I think it's to proceed  because of X, Y, Z. Then, within that one minute, I can list out, "What is it that I'm really  thinking about? What is it in my argument that I want to present?

" Now I'm going deeper  with these ideas. I am thinking faster on my feet because then we're going to move to  step two, which is structured articulation. This boils down to three things: simplify,  prioritize, and structure.

If you've seen this video before, this is the base logic of framework  thinking. We're going to take the mumble jumble we've created in step one and put it through some  structure, using frameworks for analysis. One of my go-tos is, "Okay, now I have all these ideas. 

Let's put them through the pyramid principle. What is my answer? My answer is we should go ahead. 

What are my three supporting arguments? One, two, and three. " Then I put all the details I  was worrying about earlier at the very end.

So that's one way of using a structure to organize  everything I've been thinking about in my head. Alternatively, we could use another structure:  the what, why, and so what. I talked about it in this video here.

The what is, "We should  proceed. " The why is, "Here are my three supporting arguments and their details. " And the  so what is, "This aligns with our strategy," or, "This aligns with our growth goals,"  "This aligns with how we want to position ourselves," and "We make it relevant.

" How  do I know which structure to choose? Well, this comes down to what the audience cares about.  Think of step one as you and your thoughts being the focus—I'm just trying to pull out as much as  I know.

In step two, it is about the other person we're talking to. Out of all these things, I know  what I should pick to share with them. Of course, there are frameworks to help you  figure out what they care about.

One of the frameworks I like to  use is a two-step process. First, start with gap analysis. For the other person,  what is their current state and what is their desired future state?

What is the gap? I  want to identify the gap. For my project, it's probably some sort of revenue.

Revenue  is here; we want to grow it—let's say 20% in the next five years. How do we get there?  That's the gap.

Then, focusing on the gap, one of the frameworks we can use is the  awareness framework, which has five stages. **Number one** is unaware. The executives might  think, "With our current products and services, we will grow our revenue because we're  doing so well.

" They don't realize, "Hey, maybe we can only grow at 5%, and we're  missing a 15% gap. " If that’s the case, I would focus my presentation  on highlighting the problem. **Stage two** is problem aware.

They know, "Okay,  we're not going to get to that 20% revenue uplift with just what we have," but they don't know  the solution. So, "What are we going to do about it? " If that's the case, I will focus my  time on highlighting what the solution needs to be.

They already know the problem; we quickly  agree on the problem and move on to the solution. **The third stage** is solution aware. They know  there's a problem, they know there's a solution, but they don't know the plan to  get there.

If that's the case, I focus my talk around the plan: "Right,  we need to identify the right product; here's how we're going to do it, and then here is  the timeline for launching something like that. " If they're in **stage four**, which is plan  aware, then I want to focus my presentation on "How do we take action? Here are all  the resources we need in terms of budget, team, and timeline.

" I really lay those  things out and don't spend too much time talking about everything beforehand—I  just need to reach an agreement. So there you have it: Go from brain fog to clear  articulation. It's just two steps.

If you want to go deeper into the process of articulating  your thoughts and getting your point across, check out the link below for my courses and  cohorts, and I'll see you in the next video. Bye!