Clear Communication: Strategies for Effective Engagement

Clear communication begins with structured thinking and understanding your audience's perspective.

### Mastering Clear Communication: A Three-Step Framework
* 🗣 ️ "Clear communication really starts with **clear thinking**," emphasizing the importance of structured thought in effective dialogue.
* 🎯 The first step in clear communication is to know your goal; understanding what you want to achieve helps keep conversations **focused and concise**.
* 👥 The second step is to know your audience; great communicators **empathize with their listeners** to tailor their message appropriately, avoiding jargon and assuming **zero context**.
* 📝 The third step is to know how you're going to say it, which involves being **structured in your presentation** and **writing down your ideas to clarify your thoughts**.
* 🔄 Establishing a clear call to action at the end of a meeting or conversation ensures that there are **actionable next steps**, preventing discussions from becoming ineffective.
* 📚 Writing clearly aids in thinking clearly; if your written ideas are **logical and coherent**, they are likely to be communicated effectively as well.
* 💡 By following this three-step framework—**knowing your goal, your audience, and how to convey your message**—you can enhance your communication skills across various contexts.

Albert Einstein famously said, If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough. Hi, my name's Matt. I'm a current strategy and operations associate at Google. Prior to that, I was a Management Consultant at BCG. And today, I'm going to explain to you how to communicate clearly. It doesn't matter what your background is, if you're currently a student, a working professional, or maybe even in Academia. Clear communication is something that anyone can benefit from because, at the end of the day, the ability to think in a structured way, communicate those thoughts to another human, and do so in a way that is concise and effective is a skill that literally anyone can benefit from. So, let's get right into it. So, the first thing we need to understand before we even get into how do I communicate clearly is where does clear communication start. And I would say that, at the core, clear communication really starts with clear thinking. Because if you cannot structure your thoughts in a way that makes sense, in a way that is logical, and in a way that conveys the

point that you want to get across to someone, then you're at a loss before you've even opened your mouth. Now, the next natural question from here is, Well then, how do I think in a way that is clear? Well, I'll get into that later in this video, but it's important to keep in mind that the root of all clear communication starts with your ability to think and your ability to be structured and to be logical. But that said, there is a three-step process that I recommend following when you are preparing to say, speak in a meeting, or give a presentation, whether it be in school or at work or anywhere else. And this three-step process is: one, know your goal; two, know your audience; and three, know how you're going to say it. Okay, and so I'm now going to dive into this three-step framework, and it'll make a lot more sense why you should know your goal, know your audience, and know how you're going to say it if you want to be able to come out of a meeting or an

interview where the person on the other side of the table is thinking to themselves, Wow, that guy is a great communicator. So, with step one, which is know your goal, you would be surprised how many people go into a conversation, or go into a meeting, or even a networking call without knowing what they actually want to get out of it. Like, sure, you could say, Yeah, I just want to, you know, learn a little bit more from this person, but what actually is your goal? Here, are you trying to learn specifically about their role? Are you trying to learn a little bit more about their thought process in switching into this industry? Or are you trying to just ask them for a referral for a job? Knowing your goal is the first step to being able to convey your ideas in a way that makes sense and is concise, and so that you don't ramble, because whatever your goal is, you need to keep this at the back of your mind. And so, to give a work context example, a good example of this is going into a meeting knowing

that you want to get alignment with some key stakeholders. Say it's like the CEO or a VP, someone very high up, or maybe to push back on something, right? These are the most common situations that working professionals will find themselves in, where they either need to get alignment on something and say, Hey, this is what we've been working on. All we need and what we're looking for today is your feedback, but really your sign-off on this program or this new initiative that we want to fund. Or we want to go to them and say, They've given us some sort of task or request, and we want to show them that we've done some work and we've thought about it already, but given the available resources and what we think is feasible, we'd like to push back on this request because we don't think it's a good use of our time or we think that the request simply doesn't make sense. And if you're unable to get alignment or to push back, you're never going to be able to get anything done at work. If

you're not able to get alignment; nothing will ever get paid, and if you're unable to push back, people will just pile a million things on your plate, and you'll get overwhelmed. And so, going into any sort of conversations with the goal in mind is critically important because it's going to keep you focused in the conversation so that you don't go off on random tangents, and also so that you can get your point across, and so that ultimately, at the end of the conversation, you can remind yourself, Okay, did I accomplish this goal? If not, what needs to happen? Maybe that's scheduling a follow-up call or some other next steps that need to happen. But now that we know why it's important to keep your goal in mind before you go into a conversation, the next step is to know your audience. Now, most people will say, No duh, of course, you got to know your audience; everyone knows that. Well, you would be surprised how many people go into conversations without really understanding the perspective of the person sitting on the other side of the

table. I would argue that empathy is one key trait that a lot of great communicators have in common because they're able to put themselves in the shoes of their audience and really understand not just what does my audience want but how are they going to react to certain things that I say and how does their thought process potentially differ from mine. So, something that maybe I say that seems logical to me may not necessarily sound logical to them. And another great example that I often run into because I do a fair number of coaching calls with students and early professionals is often with people who come from very technical backgrounds. So, for example, if you are someone who is in academia or you've been doing your PhD in a very technical science-related field where there's a lot of jargon or maybe you're in the medical profession, for example, oftentimes what happens is you've been swimming around in all of this technical jargon and all this terminology for so long in your day-to-day, and there's nothing wrong

with that, but when it comes to finally communicating to someone who might not come from that background, say if you're interviewing somewhere and you're speaking with HR, for example, or even talking to your friend about what you do at work, then you try to explain it to them in a way that makes sense to you, but then you end up using a bunch of words that they don't understand or assuming far too much context, which brings me to the next point, which is you need to assume in most cases zero context. Now, this is just a broad generalization here. There are exceptions to this rule, like for example, if you're talking with a colleague that you've been working very closely with on a specific project for a while, then you don't need to explain everything to them. But in 90% of cases when you're explaining something to an audience, a group of people, there is more than often going to be one person who lacks a certain level of context, and you as the presenter will often have the

most context, and so you always need to assume that everyone else has a little bit less context than you, okay? And so how does this manifest in practice? Well, this means that at the beginning of any presentation or at the beginning of every meeting, you start and you open with context. You say something like, All right, thanks everybody for joining us today. As a reminder, we've been working on this project for the past 3 weeks, and it's focused on figuring out if there is a possible solution to this problem. And so we've engaged with X, Y, and Z different parties at the company so far, and today the purpose of the meeting is to get everyone's alignment on the process that we've landed on and determine what the next steps are. Something like that. I'm obviously making this up as I go, but you always need to assume zero context. And I know some of you might be thinking, Is this really necessary? Like, it feels a little bit redundant to always have to do this. And what I would say to that is, Look, nobody

will get mad at you for restating the context and grounding everybody in the pre-existing facts. If somebody gets upset that you simply spent an additional 5 to 10 seconds laying out the groundwork before diving into the details, that's a them problem, not a you problem. So don't worry about sounding redundant. You need to be concise, but you can always restate the context at the beginning of every meeting. And I also just mentioned this, but just to write it down, remove the jargon if you're communicating with someone who's not technical. And a note on jargon: I honestly don't think that using jargon is very effective in any sort of contexts unless you happen to be speaking with someone who also is in that same field and would really understand. I think that at the end of the day, any complex concept should be able to be broken down into extremely basic components, and you should be able to explain it to someone in extremely simple terms. Again, going back to that Einstein quote: if you cannot explain it

simply, you simply don't understand it well enough. Richard Feynman, who is another famous physicist, also advocated for the Feynman technique, which is when you basically take a complex concept and you write it down on a piece of paper. You try to explain it in very basic terms and analogies and basically teach it to yourself. At the end of that, if you don't still understand this concept, then you have to go back and even simplify it further, which really goes to show that first principles thinking, being able to break things down into the most basic components, is applicable to any field, no matter how complex. If you cannot explain to basically a 10-year-old what you are working on, then that either means that you do not understand it well enough or whatever you're working on doesn't make as much sense as people think, and maybe there's a problem. But all that's to say, you really need to know your audience and put yourself in their shoes before you even open your mouth. If you do that, you will be much more effective in meetings.

and in interviews and in conversations with people because people aren't going to have as many questions about, Oh wait, why are we even having this conversation? and What were we working on before? All of these kinds of questions can be avoided if you ground everybody in the facts before you get into the details. Okay, but that brings us to the third step, which is know how you're going to say it. And there's really two things here. One is you need to be structured, and two is you need to write it down. Okay, well, why do you need to be structured? Being structured is important because if you don't come into a meeting with basically like a road map of the things you want to talk about, it is very easy to get completely derailed when one person suddenly asks a question about the first thing that you wanted to talk about, and then the whole conversation goes in that direction. And by the end of like 30 minutes or maybe an hour, all you guys have done is spent that entire time talking about that one

thing when in reality you wanted to talk about three or four different things. And so, it's important to be structured from that perspective, but also because this is going to force you to think about, Okay, how do I actually want to deliver this message? I know high-level what my goal is and what outcome I want to drive, and I know who my audience is, but how am I actually going to, in practice, deliver this message in a way that is the most effective, is the most logical, and is the most likely to convince this person or this group of people to do what I want, basically. And so, being structured simply means you think through, Okay, the flow of the presentation or the discussion, right? You're going to start with number one, and then you're going to go to number two, and then finally, you're going to end with number three, and maybe there's some call to action here. Now, number one is usually the context, which means you want to start with the context, as I've mentioned, assume zero context from your audience. Two, you want to get into the

meat of the discussion right, and so this will probably be broken out into multiple talking points if it's a complex problem, and you're going to end with basically a recap and CTA, which is a call to action. Now, the call to action is really important because, at the end of every meeting and at the end of every conversation with a business partner or a professor or anyone else that you're working with or trying to convince of something, you need to have some sort of call to action. Now, this could be as simple as saying at the end of a meeting, All right, so it sounds like we've got alignment on this in terms of next steps. It sounds like, Matt, you are going to put together the financial model for this business. Bob, you're going to put together some trading comps so that we can understand what the market is currently valuing this company at. And Alyssa, you're going to start putting together a list of potential buyers for this business. So, the call to action is basically just

also delegating work to different people or yourself, depending on what the outcome of that meeting was. And you need that because it's going to move things forward from the meeting. You don't just want the meeting to be a meeting and that's it. In most cases, you actually want people to do something coming out of that meeting, even if it's as simple as sending an email out to someone. Because otherwise, why are you even having this meeting? The most ineffective meetings that I have ever been in in my professional career, which granted hasn't been that long, have been meetings where there was a discussion for like an hour and at the end of it, nobody knew what to do. And so coming out of that meeting, nothing moved forward because there were no action items and the person running the meeting simply wasn't able to delegate effectively. And so you just lose momentum and the objective doesn't get achieved. But moving to the second point here, which is you should write it all down, going back to what I had said earlier about how the root of

All clear communication is clear thinking. I would argue that if you can write clearly, you can think clearly because writing and thinking are very similar. And if you're able to put down ideas on paper in a way that is logical and makes sense, if you can write effectively, then that means that you can think effectively. And if you can think effectively and write effectively, then you already have 50% of the battle when it comes to communicating effectively. And so, I would say the biggest thing here is again to be concise and to be logical. And the reason why I always write things down before I have to present something or before I have to go into a meeting where I have to speak is because if you read it back and it doesn't make sense, then do you really think it's going to make sense when it comes out of your mouth? No, right? So, that's why it's so important to be able to put your ideas down on paper or in writing if you want to be able to communicate effectively.

Communicating effectively is shockingly uncomplicated

Matt Huang

Clear communication starts with clear thinking and structured thoughts.

A three-step process is recommended: know your goal, know your audience, and know how to say it.

Understanding your goal is crucial for conveying ideas concisely and effectively, whether in a meeting, presentation, or networking call.

Getting Alignment and Pushing Back in Professional Conversations

Professionals often need to align with high-level stakeholders for feedback and sign-off on initiatives or to push back on unrealistic requests.

Having a clear goal for the conversation is crucial to stay focused and determine next steps.

Understanding the audience's perspective and practicing empathy can enhance communication and lead to more effective interactions.

Effective Communication: Assuming Zero Context

When communicating with others, especially those from different backgrounds, it's important to assume they have zero context.

Starting presentations or meetings with a clear overview of the project's background and purpose helps align everyone.

Removing jargon and breaking down complex concepts into simple terms makes the information more accessible to a wider audience.

The Feynman Technique and Effective Communication

The Feynman technique involves simplifying complex concepts by writing them down and explaining them in basic terms, promoting first principles thinking.

Understanding your audience and grounding them in the facts before diving into details can lead to more effective conversations.

Being structured and writing down key points is crucial for maintaining focus during meetings and avoiding getting derailed by unexpected questions.

The Importance of Structured Communication

Structured communication is crucial for effectively delivering a message and achieving desired outcomes.

It involves organizing the flow of a presentation or discussion, starting with context, moving to key talking points, and ending with a recap and call to action.

The call to action is vital for aligning next steps and ensuring everyone knows their responsibilities.

The Importance of Action and Clear Communication in Meetings

Effective meetings should result in actionable tasks to move things forward.

Clear writing is essential for clear thinking, and it helps in communicating ideas effectively.

Writing down thoughts before a meeting or presentation can ensure clarity and coherence in communication.