Brevity and padding
This week, I contributed to a social media request to post my thoughts on a particular subject. I gave my suggestion in 25 characters and when I clicked to save it, the response was it was too short and I needed 125 characters. I padded it out and the online platform was happy.
It got me thinking about the importance of brevity and how much of what we do is padding. When you think about the length of phone calls, meetings, emails, messages and conversations, much of it is waste; extraneous noise.
Coaching managers in time management principles, I see many of them pick up an additional hour per day within a few weeks, simply by identifying the padding and taking a knife to it.
It’s also important to understand where brevity isn’t useful.
If we are with a prospective client and they want to chat about their world, brief is not helpful. If we shortcut the tender handover process to a project manager and don’t take time to go through the details, it is likely to have a multiplying waste-effect on many fronts as the project kicks off. If we are trying to build connections with our people, taking additional time for coffee and conversation in team meetings can be extremely useful.
If brief serves the purpose then that is best. If additional time and communication contribute to overall effectiveness, then go with that.
And given I am at 234 words, I think that is enough said.
Ray
ray@rayhodge.com.au; www.rayhodge.com.au; +61 403 341 105
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*Photo by Matt Hatchett: https://www.pexels.com/photo/folding-knife-2599276/