If I’m talking about a problem, solution, or question with someone(s) I like to communicate all the info I have in my brain. I want to share the journey that I took that led to our conversation. I feel it’s important to see how and why I got where I got. Get everyone on the same page.
I use context to frame up my answer, approach, or idea as well as relay what I considered along the way.
If I could jack into their head all-matrix-like and send everything in one go, we could have a delightful collaboration and make progress. But, that’s not how things work.
While prepping for an upcoming (potentially very important) meeting I’m trying to get focused on what do I want from that time. What’s my goal and what is the most critical and strategic thing to say to anchor the conversation?
Part of the problem is that I’m not done thinking yet. Collaboration continues the process. I have some thoughts that I’m looking to discuss with others and see what makes it out the other side. The conversation is helping closing the open loops in my mind.
Anyway, as I’m trying to boil my thoughts down for this meeting I remembered this post from John Cutler.
Each time I read this article I find my self saying, “yep. yep. yep….” These points felt the most pertinent to my current situation.
You may spend a lot longer thinking about things than most people. Pace your delivery.
My modus operandi is to roll ideas around for a while gathering information, understanding context and building a holistic view. When someone’s interested/ready to talk about it I want to share it all. Providing information via firehose rarely works.
If you go deep first, and then simplify…keep in mind that you don’t need to show all of your work.
This really hit for me. I had a 🤯 moment. I’m trying to show all the work that I did to come to the conclusions I came to. I’m also trying to pre-answer questions.
Your default description of (almost) any problem will be too threatening/overwhelming.
Guilty as charged. (Sorry friends and co-workers!)
All the context, the perspectives, the corner-cases, etc. that are part of the topic we’re discussing are very interesting (to me). I’m detail oriented and appreciate nuance. I like to get into the weeds. When I’m sharing my thoughts, the context of those weeds come out as an illustration of why I think the forest is the way it is.
I highly recommend checking out all 20 of the items in John’s article (and John’s newsletter in general, tbh). I’d love to know if any of them resonate with you as well.
Let’s start a support group.
I think that this “writing a newsletter project” has been good practice in these areas. By the time you see an entry from me, I’ve already framed out the majority of a longer post that contains a slew of adjacent ideas.
I try to whittle it down to one idea, wordsmith that to help it stand alone, and ship it out. My usual process ends up with an ebb and flow of narrowing down, writing more, realizing that I’ve added two new topics, narrowing down again and continuing that until I have to press send. Remember my must ship 50 newsletters? Part of that goal was to force me to send.
I feel like I’m leaving interesting ideas on the cutting room floor that really help explain my thoughts. Presenting what feels like 1/12th of the information forfeits so much context, nuance and color. (Sure, I’m saving my notes to help build a back log of potential topics but it doesn’t feel the same as providing the whole picture together.)
I understand that if you can’t get the crux out in an elevator pitch you might not get the chance to share the rest, but I don’t like it.
I don’t know how to do this (yet), but I do know I need to get better at it.
If you have tips on cutting to the chase please let me know - I need all the help I can get.
🙏