LanitaWessel896

On the subject of teaching business communication skills, ponderous length doesn't impress; it alienates. We're all busy, and now we all have limited attention spans. FOCUS your message and do not forget: Brevity is clarity.

In business communication, a similar rule applies whether you're wanting to sharpen your presentation skills or way with words-at all. Keep the audience or readers uppermost in your thoughts -- stifling the impulse to pontificate -- and they'll be next to you. Not what you desire them to try and do is examine the insides of their eyelids if you're halfway through your speech.

Certainly, keeping it concise isn't just the easiest way. Oftentimes I recall returning to the newsroom being a reporter with a notebook packed with facts and juicy quotes coming from a homicide scene or a contentious city council meeting, just to hear my editor say: "We're putting it about the front page, but make it short. We've only got 10 inches for doing this."

Ouch, I'd think. I can't have enough time to write down short. Now I can decide what NOT to use. There are plenty of: It's worthwhile. Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address was 278 words, and it also took him only six or seven minutes to supply the magnificent 701-word Second Inaugural Address. No, you are not Lincoln. But you are efficient at distilling your notions and stifling your ego.

Second, I have top tips for anybody frightened for the prospect of stand-up business communication, meaning a presentation or maybe a speech: Ponder over it as being a conversation between two intelligent people that cherish effective communication. Doing this, you are not an actor alone up there on a stage. Instead, you're in a dialogue that has energy and depth as a result of partners who listen and use you.