Written by: Malik S Sarwar, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Many of us are striving to enhance the impact we make on the world, whether that is with family, friends, bosses, colleagues, in social media, or in our daily lives.
To immediately increase the impact in any of your communications, condense your message to your top three points.
Before starting any presentation, casual or formal, prepare the three key areas you wish to focus on. If you have more than three, and we all do, then reduce them to three.
Brevity rules.
Can you name all seven of the seven habits of highly effective people, or how about listing all ten of the ten commandments? Probably not, and it’s not because they are not important, but because we as humans do best with absorbing a minimal amount of information.
Aristotle also leveraged the power of three. He created a triangle with three points to help a speaker increase her/his appeal to the audience: logos, ethos, and pathos. Taken together, they form the Rhetorical Triangle. Logos appeals to reason, Ethos appeals to the person’s character and Pathos appeals to emotions and feelings. There is power in threes.
One stands alone, two is interesting, and three is compelling.
While most of us realize the power of limiting our messages to the top three points, we sometimes fail to take the time to follow it.
In 1750 Benjamin Franklin wrote a letter describing his experiments with electricity, and excused the length of his report by stating, “I have already made this paper too long, for which I must crave pardon, not having now time to make it shorter.”
Mark Twain experienced the same struggle. When referring to writing a postcard, Twain once shared, “I didn’t have time to write you a short letter, so I wrote you a long one.”
Just think of some of the popular groups of threes. How many of these would you remember if they were in groups of 10?
Ready, set, go
Blood, sweat, and tears
Beginning, middle, and end
Tell them what you will tell, tell them, and tell them what you told them
The next time you present, consider mentioning, “I have three things I wish to share…”. That sets the stage for the listener to focus on just three things and avoids them losing interest.
Human psychology gravitates towards specificity. When you say three, the listener is now emotionally committed to pay attention to all three. It’s as if a Velcro placeholder is positioned in their brain with their mind now seeking to find its match. Then throughout your message, ensure you say ‘one’, ‘two’ and ‘three’ to complete the Velcro pair.
When used effectively, the power of three enhances your impact because the audience can actually hear and potentially remember what you’re sharing.
You’re now ready to improve your impact, by simply condensing your message to the top three points.
Just get started!
Global Leader Group, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Global Leader Group is a leadership firm of proven practitioners who share a deep-rooted desire to make a difference by helping organizations FIND & BUILD leaders to deliver excellence. They do that through three main pillars:
Leadership & Learning: They partner with organizations to accelerate performance and belonging by pushing the boundaries of learning. Offerings: Design and implementation of Leadership and Learning Strategy and Frameworks, World-class Learning Design & Experiences, Coaching, and Speaking (Keynotes & Appearances).
Talent Search (External Retained Recruiting): In addition to helping organizations build current leaders, Global Leader Group adds world-class leaders to managements teams around the globe.
Practitioner Consulting: Allow the experience of their practitioners to advise and transform your business through their expertise in Driving Digital, Retail Banking, Wealth Management, Customer Journeys, Sales Management & Incentives, and Strategic HR (Culture, People Processes, Organizational Design, and Team Effectiveness).
Their clients include leaders at Citi, AstraZeneca, HSBC, Google, the Governments, Airbus, Manubhai Jewellers, ACUMA, Sensata, numerous RIAs, Banks, Credit Unions, and more.
