How to Use the Power of 3 to Improve Your Communication

Have you ever thought about how you structure your communication?

·     Do you just open your mouth and freestyle it?

·     Do you only open your mouth when you’re 100% sure of your facts?

·     Do you say everything on your mind and hope that, at least, some of it is relevant?

We’ve all been in unfortunate meetings with colleagues who use 100 words when just one would do—wishing they’d give someone else a chance to speak. Or, on group calls with silent introverts—wondering if they’ll ever chip in. Or, found ourselves wishing someone would just stop rambling during a meeting because all we can think is, “For heaven’s sake, get to the point!”

It’s easy to notice mistakes when they’re not your own

While we’ve been on the receiving end of poor communication and find it easy to recognize, we’re not nearly as good at reflecting on our own style of interaction. How often do we ask ourselves where we might lose our audience, or what we could do to communicate better? I’m guessing not as often as we roll our eyes at the non-stop rambler or the mute introvert.

Introducing ‘The Rule of 3’

There is a super simple hack that helps ensure that you are a person people to listen to (not the person who makes them zone out): ‘The Rule of 3’.

The Rule of 3 is a tool that helps you structure your communications by thinking about things in 3s – 3 key messages and 3 key points. It’s super-helpful and rarely fails.

Today’s experiment is all about using it to structure your communications. It’s useful in ad-hoc meetings and big presentations as well as sales pitches and board meetings (and everything in between).

Have fun with it and let me know what you discover! And, if you find it useful, please share.

Your Leadership Experiment

1) Before your next meeting or presentation, ask yourself:

• What is the purpose of my communication? What do I want the impact to be? What do I want to happen as a result?
• Why should my audience care? What’s in it for them? What do they need from me?

2) Then ask yourself:

• Given my purpose and the needs of my audience, what are my 3 key messages?

3) For longer presentations or communications, try breaking each key message down a bit further. Ask yourself:

• What 3 key points support each of those 3 key messages.