10 communication lessons for strategists from one of the best non-fiction writers in the world...

The best bit of advice I received as a young agency planner was greatly disheartening, but also greatly helpful.

Early in my career, a wise old boss told me that:

'Ideas alone are worth the sum total of nothing. Until you can persuade others of how good your ideas are you're stuck as the marketing equivalent of a eunuch - full of endeavour but with no chance of an end product.'

There's no point being a brilliant, incisive strategist if you can't communicate your points in a believable way to peers, clients and the wider public.

Having a smartypants ideas is only a small part of a your job. It's probably the easiest part.

Your success actually relies largely on your ability to create compelling visions of the future that others feel drawn to.

The best business strategists in the world are also the best communicators (think Jobs or Bezos). They have the ability both to see the future, but also help others see it too. That's an incredible superpower.

Ever since I received that particular piece of advice, I've always been fascinated with communication. I love reading books on media and writing. I love watching TED talks and dissecting the speaker's presentation, or reading books by people like Michael Lewis or Derek Thompson and trying to retro-engineer their approach to storytelling.

As part of this ongoing battle to communicate better, I recently took up Malcolm Gladwell's brilliant Masterclass on non-fiction writing.

If you're reading this, you'll probable be familiar with Gladwell from his best selling books The Tipping Point, David & Goliath and Outliers or his New Yorker column. Maybe you've seen his Ted talk or heard his brilliant podcast.

Though there have been some queries raised about his 'rigour', clearly, the man knows how to package a compelling story.

The chance to learn from one of the best non-fiction writers in the world was a no brainer. I thought it would help me become a better writer. But I got more than I bargained for too.

After the first lesson, it quickly became clear that the way narrative non-fiction writers think and approach their job is incredibly similar to how strategists work. We both try to get under the skin of stories and problems, try to represent real people and need huge dollops of empathy. We both need to deliver regular, sharp and interesting pieces of communication to an audience that is attention poor and looking for only the best bits. Gladwell is a master at all of this.

There were plenty of great takeaways that I believe can be applied to my day to day role.

Here are just a few:

1) Data isn't boring, but people need to be connected to it.

You can't shove data points down someone's throat and expect them to be enthralled. The job of a great writer or strategist, as Gladwell puts it, is to 'first explain why a piece of data is important and what it means'.

He says that

'you should only use a piece of data when you've already told an interesting story about why it matters'.

Gladwell also makes the point that revealing your hand up front isn't always a good thing. You control when a piece of information that you've unearthed is released, so be very circumspect with when you use it use it. You want the reader to try fill in the blanks and make their own conclusion. Careful withholding of information can be as important as getting all the facts out there early.

2) Make jargon your friend.

Jargon is just the language people inside a world use to short cut things. Most jargon is designed to be pretentious and keep the world out, but if you can contextualise that jargon then you're actually giving your audience a tool to better understand a new world. If you can couch it in a meaningful way and use it sparingly, you help illuminate things for your audience.

As agency strategists we're often fond of overcomplicating, but in the instances when we do need to use jargon, it can help to first first state why this term is important and why we're using it.

3) It's better to be mostly right and interesting than completely right and boring.

Gladwell uses a brilliant quote to hammer this home -

'If you're accusing me of being more interesting than correct then I'm guilty'.

People generally tend to prefer an interesting half truth to a dull truth. Of course I'm not saying you should lie to your clients, but it's your job to be interesting and provocative.

Good writing, like good strategy, is often about making a character, scene or idea come to life. If you can make it feel true, then it is true.

That's real influence.

4) If you're only working with bits of ideas that are relevant right now, you're limiting yourself.

I love this idea. Sometimes I ask myself why I read so much and the answer often comes back to 'I might need some of this in the future'. Consuming varied media is very important for a writer and a strategist, since you never know when you might need to pull on something.

I can't count the amount of times that something random has sparked in my head from a book I read years ago to help unlock a brief.

Build yourself a memory bank that's packed with interesting fragments of stories, themes and ideas, and you'll never be stuck.

5) Don't be afraid to combine and steal.

Creativity is often just taking bits and pieces from here and there and then combining them into something completely novel. Gladwell reflects this view, and advises writers that what they do is a function of all the things they learn from others. The sooner we realise this the better. This is not to say that stealing is good, but you can take concepts and analogies from elsewhere and apply them to your story.

The seed of your great idea could be hiding, buried in the work of others.

6) The best stories are often found at the overlap of analogous worlds.

Linked to the previous insight, Gladwell says that great non fiction writers hunt like truffle pigs within the overlap and intersection of seemingly disparate worlds. To tell a great story, you often need to step outside it and look at it from another angle. These overlaps can deliver many great insights and different lenses. Great writers see patterns and can inhabit different worlds simultaneously. Gladwell advises us to 'trespass in foreign territory' often and don't be blinkered to your own line of work.

This touches on the idea of 'combinational intelligence' and is, I believe, a vital skill for planners. If you can pluck an insight from behavioural economics, evolution, sport or other areas of business and make it relevant for a brief you're working on, it can often unlock a completely new way of thinking.

7) There's a science to building a character.

In non-fiction, like in strategy, we often have to create personas or quickly describe the background of real people in a way that's compelling. According to Gladwell, the key is to not be afraid to burn some of your word count on telling a seemingly unrelated story that illustrates part of that person's mindset. Paint a picture with these little snippets that do more than descriptions can.

Contrast is also a good way to make an efficient, instant mental picture. Gladwell advises using a person's differences to the norm to quickly explain their makeup.

This is handy advice for the next research project or pitch you do. Instead of describing an audience, tell a little story about them or contrast them with another audience to make your point speedily.

8) Aim for blue ocean, always differentiate yourself.

The class also goes into detail on how to get a job as a writer, and according to Gladwell, the best way to do this is to 'create a competitive advantage. Always think about what you can do to be different to others'. This is something that many venture capitalists also speak about, and it taps into the idea of 'finding a blue ocean' in business.

This is fascinating to me as one of my favourite definitions of strategy is about:

'intelligently finding ways to be different and unique in significant areas'.

Everything you do must give you an edge or a point of difference. This is true for writing, but also for your career path as a strategist and most importantly, for how you advise your clients. Find a point of differentiation and use this to carve out some mental space among your audience.

9) Simplify, always simplify.

According to Gladwell -

'writing must be simple enough so it does not defeat the reader'.

Get to the point quickly and make every word count. Thought it's easier said than done, the key is to communicate sophisticated ideas using short sentences. The job of a writer (and a strategist) is to do the hard work on your end consumer's behalf. There's an incredible amount of work to be done in making a piece of writing feel sharp, elegant and rhythmic instead of bloated and forced. A writer must always 'compress to impress'.

This is something I struggle with. The urge to say more than is necessary and thus dull your point is great, but it's generally better to say less and edit heavily. As Stephen King says, 'kill your darlings'.

10) Your job is to be naive and inquisitive, humble and egoless.

Finally, according to Gladwell,

'a lot of what brings us pleasure in writing and reading is the pleasure we get from investigating the contents of other people's minds and how amazing it is that they don't think like us'.

He refers to the impulse that great writers have for wanting to see the world through other's eyes, and how the job of a great writer is to represent the contents to the others. He says that as an interviewer, you must 'suppress ego' and use your humility as a tactic. You must go into an interview with 'no assumptions'. Ego and narcissism can stop you from gaining empathy. That's a big pitfall.

With strategy and in particular research, what we're trying to do is find the right questions to get the most interesting answers. This requires empathy, humility and a great fascination with the opinions of others.

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These were the key points that I took away from the course, but there's plenty more stuff in there that you'll find valuable. I think it's well worth the €75 outlay. Take a look here to enroll.

Thanks for reading.

Shane O'Leary

@shaneoleary1

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