Communication in a World of Complexity

Persuasion is the centerpiece of all business activity. Clients must be persuaded that your level of competence, concern and capability are significantly greater than your competitors; shareholders and stakeholders must be persuaded that the current corporate vision and new strategic plan is both inspiring and viable and colleagues, friends and family members must understand not only what is being asked of them but why. But despite how pervasive and critically important the need for persuasion is, most individuals struggle valiantly to communicate, let alone inspire! Too often they stumble down the dark and confusing path of charts, graphs, statistics and industry speak that at best is uninspiring and at worst is mind numbing. So what is the solution?

If you want to involve people at the deepest and most profound levels, the mechanism that you must both embrace and master is the art and science of storytelling. Storytelling has been the preferred method of communication for over 6000 years. You remember your past in the form of the seminal events (stories) that impacted and forged your life and you also project your future in the form of story.

If you get two or more people in a room together, within a very short time, they will be telling stories to each other. We even dream in the form of story! However when you attend the average corporate event or listen in on the average client meeting you will find that charts, graphs and statistics have replaced, story.? Why is this?

? it's easier to slap together a bunch of PowerPoint slides with charts and statistics on them than to craft a meaningful and inspiring presentation.

? in an industry dominated by left brain thinkers there is an unspoken belief that the truth lies somewhere in the statistics rather than in the hearts of the audience.

? the amount of time necessary and the depth of thought required to craft a compelling story is being ground up and spat out by our frenetic multitasking mindset that would rather skim than mine ideas and content.

Here are some steps you can begin to take today to build a reservoir of content from which to extract meaningful stories.

? Start becoming a student of history (not just investment history) so you can extract both the context and stories to help illuminate the present.

? Understand that trying to do more than one mental operation at a time is not multitasking but simply confusion. True multitasking is one physical and one mental activity period. You can commute and clear out your e-mail on Blackberry

(assuming your commute is on a train and not in rush-hour traffic), you can go out for a jog with your spouse and have a great one-hour conversation and you can go to the gym and listen to a great book on history, psychology, philosophy and occasionally even the stock market.

? Become not just a student of the markets but also a student of psychology. We spend far more time today managing the fears, aspirations and expectations of our clients than we actually spend managing their assets.

? Move from skimming to mining by building time each week for both study and reflection. Sacrificing depth and insight for speed and efficiency is the single greatest risk faced by our multitasking sleep deprived, overfed and undernourished 24-hour a day culture.

Every artist, craftsman, technician and professional has tools that must be mastered in order to perform in their arena. Of all of the tools, techniques and technologies that we must master in our profession, there is none more critical than the English language. The depth, the breadth and the richness of your vocabulary, coupled with your ability to craft both a coherent and compelling message, will either accelerate or retard the growth and development of your practice. One of the most obvious yet sublime truths is that your practice can't grow more rapidly than you do.

Since the average newspaper and periodical is written to appeal to a high school education, you must move outside this medium to expand both your vocabulary and your thought process. This, of course, places you squarely in the arena of books.

By reading well-written books you will assimilate the style, the structure, the vocabulary as well as the insights both intended and unintended by the author. So put down that newspaper and pick up a great book!