Getting an idea from your mind to someone else’s is hard. Doing that while focused on you makes it harder. Focusing instead on them is good advice. They look bored? Cut it short. They seem confused? Explain it more carefully. Is it complicated? Prepare. Are they in a hurry? Get to the point fast.
“[Self-expression is] a solo performance in front of people with 100 percent of your attention on finding and speaking your thoughts”.¹
If focusing on them is the way to go, should you kill self-expression to communicate well? No. Thinking of self-expression as the opposite of communication is not helpful beyond the point of focusing on them. William Zinsser wrote about this problem on his book “On writing well”. After giving advice on how to keep the reader’s attention he tells us, in chapter 5, to not worry about the audience:
“This may seem to be a paradox. […] I’m talking about two different issues. One is craft, the other is attitude. The first is a question of mastering a precise skill. The second is a question of how you use that skill to express your personality”. He continues “There’s no excuse for losing readers through sloppy workmanship. If they doze off in the middle of your article because you have been careless about a technical detail, the fault is yours. […] But on the larger issue of whether the reader likes you, or likes what you are saying, or how you are saying it, or agrees with it, or feels an affinity for your sense of humor or your vision of life, don’t give him a moment’s worry. You are who you are, he is who he is, and either you’ll get along or you won’t”.²
Craft doesn’t prevent you from expressing yourself; it is a foundation that helps you do it effectively.
Next time you get feedback on communication try to separate craft (the technical) from personality (whether they like you). If they don’t like you, that’s their loss. If they don’t like your idea because it was poorly delivered, confusing, or some other technical problem then you got some feedback worth addressing.
Workshop
- Write down a paragraph describing either your profession or a project. Rewrite it assuming different audiences (a 5-year-old, a teenager, someone who works on another industry, a peer, your mom, etc.)
¹ It’s the Way You Say It: Becoming Articulate, Well-spoken, and Clear by Carol A. Fleming PhD.
² On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction by William Zinsser.