Speaking With Confidence

Practical Frameworks for Clear Communication from a Former Rocket Scientist

• Tim Newman • Season 1 • Episode 13

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Welcome to another episode of "Speaking with Confidence," the podcast that brings you practical advice and inspiring conversations to help you become a better and more confident communicator. I’m your host, Tim Newman, and today we have an exceptional guest with us, Chris Fenning. Chris is an accomplished engineer, rocket scientist, and an award-winning author known for his expertise in clear communication. Whether you're looking to enhance your public speaking skills, improve your day-to-day workplace interactions, or write more effective emails, this episode is packed with actionable tips and insights.

Our guest for today, Chris Fenning, has navigated through multiple industries and countries, bringing a wealth of experience in both technical fields and communication. From being a rocket scientist to an expert in communication, Chris has authored several award-winning books, including "The First Minute," which focuses on the importance of being clear and concise in communication. His practical frameworks and experiences provide a unique perspective on overcoming fears and mastering the art of effective communication.

In this episode, we dive deep into various aspects of communication—both verbal and written. Chris shares his personal journey of overcoming public speaking anxiety and the transformation he underwent to become a confident communicator. We discuss the role of scheduling theory and project management in planning events and the significance of clear communication in this context. Chris introduces valuable frameworks like Context, Intent, and Key Message, as well as Goal, Problem, Solution (GPS), to help you frame your messages effectively. We also touch on the psychological reasons behind excessive information sharing and how to overcome them. Lastly, we emphasize the critical role of active listening and provide tips for writing impactful emails.

Key Takeaways

  1. Framing Your Communication:
    • Chris emphasizes the importance of framing in communication. The Context, Intent, and Key Message framework is a powerful tool to ensure your message is clear and relevant to the audience. For instance, in job interviews, compressing complex information into a succinct answer can make a significant impact.
  2. Overcoming Public Speaking Anxiety:
    • Chris shares his personal fears of public speaking and creating videos. By setting a challenge for himself to create 101-minute videos, he practiced consistently and eventually overcame his fears. Repetition and practice in small steps are key to becoming a confident speaker.
  3. Effective Written Communication:
    • Understanding how people read large bodies of text is crucial. Chris mentions that people often read in an "f" shape, focusing on the first line and skimming downward. To make emails more effective, use informative subject lines, repeat the topic and purpose, and label questions clearly.
  4. Balancing Team Dynamics and Communication:
    • Effective communication is not just about individual performance but also about how well team members coordinate and cooperate. Tim shares insights from his experience in the sports industry, emphasizing the interconnectedness of different departments and the need for effective interdepartmental communication.

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Tim Newman:

Welcome to Speaking with Confidence, a podcast that's here to help you unlock the power of effective public speaking. I'm your host, tim Newman, and I'm excited to take you on a journey to become a better public speaker. If you're like most people, just the thought of speaking in front of a crowd or talking during an important meeting can trigger all kinds of anxiety. Trust me, I know what that's like. I gave my first speech as a senior in college. I was so nervous. As soon as I got to the front of the room and opened my mouth to speak, I threw up. I have learned a lot since then and I'm here to help others overcome their fear of messing up or sounding stupid.

Tim Newman:

Today's guest on the Speaking with Confidence podcast is someone that lived up to his childhood reputation in ways that nobody expected. As a kid, chris Fenning's friends used to say Fenning's got the formula because they knew he had an answer for everything. Fast forward to today and this engineer and rocket scientist has turned his attention to crafting the formula for clear communication. He's taken experiences gathered over his career in a variety of industries and found ways to create formulas, systems and practices that anyone can apply, whether you want to write effective emails, capture an interviewer's attention or increase your chances of being heard by colleagues. Chris has suggestions based on science, experience and practice. He's written award-winning books, been featured in the Harvard Business Review and today he's sharing it all with the Speaking with Confidence community.

Tim Newman:

As you listen to our conversation, you'll hear about concepts like framing, how the letter F factors into reading large amounts of text, and personal challenges you can use to improve your skills. You'll be entertained with a few personal stories about our families, and I guess we'll all find out if our spouses truly listen to our interviews. All kidding aside, I'm confident you will not only enjoy the episode, but will also glean valuable insights from Chris Fenning. Be sure to listen till the end, and I encourage you to pick up one of my new favorite books, the First Minute how to Start Conversations that Get Results. Chris Fenning makes it easier for us to communicate at work. He helps expert talk to non-experts, teams talk to executives and much more. Chris's practical methods are used in organizations like Google, nato and have appeared in Harvard Business Review. He is also the author of multiple award-winning books on communication and training that have been translated into 16 languages. Chris, welcome to the show. I really appreciate you joining us.

Chris Fenning:

Well, tim, thank you very much. It's nice to be here speaking with confidence.

Tim Newman:

Well you know, I tell my students and the people that I coach that you know what we do. We're not doctors, we're not lawyers, we're not building bridges or architects, and what we do is rocket science. It's talking to people and it turns out you're an actual rocket scientist and yes, so, um, talk a little bit about you know, uh, your background and and how you, um, you know, transitioned into, uh, focusing on communication absolutely.

Chris Fenning:

and yes, you're right, this isn't rocket science and I can say that because by training, I was a rocket scientist my, that's what my degree was in um but I'm not a rocket scientist anymore. You definitely don't want me sending anything up into space not anymore but I can talk about it fairly confidently. So what? What happened? How did I go from being an engineer to being somebody who teaches communication and writes about communication skill? Well, it took a career.

Chris Fenning:

It took six different industries, starting in defense, working in telecoms, healthcare, the travel industry for a while, a bunch of other things, and over 20 years and over 30 different countries that I was working in, I experienced a lot of different communication styles, different communication training and throughout my journey in my career my employed career as a project manager and as a director in an IT company that gave me the skills to be able to communicate better, and I kept finding gaps. And whenever I found a gap in the training I received or in something that I or my team wasn't able to do, I found ways to fill the gap, either by reaching out to other experts, reading books, taking courses or finding the answers for myself. And after 20 years of being employed in those different roles, I took the leap of going into my own business and sharing what I'd learned and what I practiced and what I'd found. And now I write books and teach.

Tim Newman:

So you've come from a wide range of industries, like you said in a long time, and even multiple countries. Were there any constants across industries or across cultures or countries that you saw in terms of communication?

Chris Fenning:

Oh so many. Good or bad? Yes to both. There are many, many good things and many bad things. I'll start with the easy ones. The complaints that we have in you're in the things. I'll start with the easy ones, the complaints that we have in the States. I'm currently in the Netherlands. The complaints that we have about meetings and emails and people not getting to the point and the person who always interrupts. Those are pretty much everywhere in Western and North African countries. The interrupting is very different when you get into India and Asia, because there's far more of a cultural respect for each other and relational hierarchy within organizations. Interrupting is not something that is acceptable there, so there's a big difference. But most of the things like meetings that don't produce anything, they're everywhere. That is a global problem.

Tim Newman:

So it's not just us, and I feel a little bit better about that.

Chris Fenning:

It's not just us, no, no, it's not. And there's always someone who dominates a conversation. And then there's people have fear of being judged. The fear of public speaking is a global fear. So very, very similar problems in every culture. The differences come in how we communicate socially and how much time is spent in social communication at the beginning of a meeting. So Spain, in particular, if we're looking at Western Europe, it's totally acceptable, in fact it's really expected to spend time in just general conversation before you get to the work topics. I'm talking about work at this point, and having those, those social conversations first, is an expected part. If you go in there and go straight to the point in a very dutch or american way or or eastern european or russian way, which is very direct, then that's going to, that's going to put a few people, that's a few noses out of joint and ruffle a few feathers because they'd be like slow, slow down, relax a little bit right.

Tim Newman:

Connecting is so important Getting to know the people that you're working with or working for. The more connection that you have, the better rapport that you have, the much easier the work product is going to be and the much better the work product is going to be.

Chris Fenning:

Yes, I want to say I don't know if you picked up on that I sort of hesitated as I said yes, because I agree with you and there is a bucket load of evidence that says teams, particularly that have close social connections and people who've really integrated at a social, personal level perform better. But when it comes to work, work is transactional and if the majority of our focus is on the social side and nobody gets to the point, then actually that's frustrating and less productive than getting to, you know, getting on with the actual work. There's a balance to be found, yeah.

Tim Newman:

You know, I come from the sport industry and if you look at it from a team, a sport team, the sport product on the field or on the court or what have you. There's a lot of talk about the chemistry in the locker room and it could be really good. Just take I don't know if you follow football for us at the NFL not soccer, but American football, right. So you know the team that won the Super Bowl, the Kansas City Chiefs. They seem to have really good communication, really good camaraderie and they play well together. But during the Super Bowl there were a couple of blowups on the sideline and everybody thought that that was just normal, because they just kind of got on with it and let it go and continued to play well. Now, if you had the same thing on a team, that is terrible. It's kind of viewed as negative. So there is that kind of balance.

Chris Fenning:

It is, yeah, um, the same behavior, but viewed through a different lens, is interpreted differently and, unfortunately, when it comes to, for example, like gender in the workplace, an assertive man is seen as someone who is bold and confident. An assertive lady is there there aren't good words used to describe that or described as bossy or out of place. And that's same situation, different lens, exactly. And we have to get over that. We really need to get over that. Yes, yes, we do, and that is a long game cultural change that takes effort from all of us and we should all be doing something about it. First of all, checking our own language.

Chris Fenning:

I have this I have a seven-year-old daughter and when we talk about her feelings, my wife and I make sure that we're using language that's irrespective of gender. She's confident, she's not bossy, she knows her own mind. I can't even think of the other words now, but we started off by using very clearly girl-based terms that are only ever used for the female gender and realized that's what we were doing. So we checked ourselves to make sure we were using a more appropriate neutral, to make sure we were using a more appropriate neutral, inclusive, just non-label-y language. And then and that's something in a personal story, but at work we check ourselves and take these small steps, and then we should also be aware of other people and call out in a team, when a team is not treating everybody with the same respect, that does come from culture or team culture or organizational culture, and allowing people to have that space to speak up for whatever reason, for those types of things and others as well.

Tim Newman:

Calling things out when you see it, and I also say that there's a right way to do it and a wrong way to do it as well. You're calling things out when you see it and I also say that there's a right way to do it and a wrong way to do it, as well, there absolutely is, there absolutely is.

Chris Fenning:

We could go down a real path on this. What I'd like to do, if I can, is go back to the team analogy that you used, because I'm not exactly sure what my thoughts are on this, so I'd like to sort of chat through an idea with you live in this podcast, we often use team analogies for communication and used a great one. Of the Kansas City Chiefs communicate really really well and that enabled them, or was one of the enabling factors, to get really high performance, and, again, lots of studies available to support that. The problem I have with it is I don't think work is really comparable to a sports team, because very few teams at work function in that same cohesive way that a sports team does.

Chris Fenning:

A sports team needs to the second handovers between each player. People need to be keeping track where everyone is literally on the field, what is happening around them, what is their own play, what is the opposition doing, and if they don't do it together, they fail. But that's not been my experience in lots of different companies and countries around the world. Teams tend to be groups of individuals doing a similar job or in some cases, they just happen to report to the same line manager and they're in matrixed environments for projects where it's far more individual contributor and the handoffs are less frequent and less critical than in a sports team. I don't know if the sports analogies help or hurt us when we talk about communication at work and I'm wondering what you think about that.

Tim Newman:

Well, I agree with you, but I think that maybe that should be another shift that we should be making. Just take any business as a for example. Let's take education, because that's where I come from. As a college professor. I can't teach my class if I don't have students in it, so I'm relying on that would be tough.

Tim Newman:

I'm relying on a number of different other people in departments, whether it's the admissions, whether it's financial aid, whether it's the university scheduler or our department scheduler, it's our department chair. So we've got a number of different things that have to work together to be able to put on just one class, let alone multiple classes, my multiple classes, my colleagues' multiple classes, the department's multiple classes as we go out forward. And if one person fails or if one area doesn't actually perform, everything else suffers. So if there's a problem with admissions, we're losing students or we don't have enough students.

Chris Fenning:

So it is forms and handoffs, but the handoffs are not to the second. There's a lot more flexibility, right? Do you think everyone in that chain of steps feels the same way, that you're all part of the same team? They don't.

Tim Newman:

To me that therein lies the problem. If we have a culture shift and we understand that we are a team and we do have to work together, that everybody is dependent upon everybody else doing their role or their job Because I also believe that everybody has a role Do your role and do your role very, very well.

Chris Fenning:

And then that in and of itself helps the team. Well, there's a lesson there for the listeners and for your students If you've got a big student audience here is do your job really well, but pay attention to the people around you, whether that's upstream or downstream in your process, the people who you have to interact with and those who rely on what you're doing Right, and communicating in all of those directions is really important to a successful career Exactly, and here's another example.

Tim Newman:

So you know. So we're recording this in June of 2024. I've got to turn in what I think I want my schedule for the spring of 25 very, very short. What I think I want, my schedule for the spring of 25, very, very short. And to me that makes my head explode because to me that's just so far down the road. But I also understand that other things have to take place on many other, different levels for that to happen. So it may not be on my time frame and time schedule.

Tim Newman:

Yeah, you're not doing the. Thing.

Chris Fenning:

Right, you're not doing the thing until spring, but the classes are published at the beginning of September when students enroll, so all of the schedules need to be available and vetted and loaded onto the websites, and everything, by September, which is only two and a half months away, right? And when you factor in summer break and all of the schedule juggling and room allocation and everything else that needs to happen, yeah, it makes a lot of sense. And now we're really looking at scheduling theory and project management, and it still comes back to the same core principle, though is do our job well, but be aware of how it affects everybody else, and just because it doesn't it's not important to me right now doesn't mean it's not important to other people, exactly, yeah, and vice versa. Important, I mean doesn't doesn't necessarily mean important for you, right?

Tim Newman:

and but but again, a shift in culture. If we understand that and say, okay, maybe it may not be important to you and maybe, okay, you go do what you need to do, and then maybe I just need to help you and pick up some slack somewhere else.

Tim Newman:

You know, the whole idea that it's not always about us, not always revolves around us, yeah very true and yes again if we could, if we can be better do our job and do it well, and sometimes our job is helping other people yes, it is, and the thing all of these, all of these topics, have in common is clear, appropriate communication, exactly.

Chris Fenning:

And you just hit on a really important sort of tenant of all of this is it's not about me, it's not about us, it's about the personal people that we're speaking to. I want to give an example for that. If I need something for my work to be successful, from my perspective it's about me and what I want. That's okay, because it's necessary for me to do my job and produce the thing that I'm trying to produce. But if I need your help, tim, if I come and talk to you and it's all about me, I need this thing for my work, for my thing, so I can deliver this then I haven't made it clear why you need to be involved, what I want from you, why you should care, why it's relevant, and that makes it hard for you to get involved, care and understand Exactly. So, even though it's about me in my mind, when I talk to you, I need to frame and adapt my message to make it relevant from your perspective.

Chris Fenning:

Hey, tim, I'd like your help. I'm trying to do this thing, and the reason I'd like your help is if I don't do it, it's going to affect you in the spring, and now I'm showing why it's relevant to you and I'm going to describe it in a way that's relatable to you. So, as you said just a few minutes ago, it's not about us, it's about them, it's about the audience, and if anyone listening to this can change one thing about the way they communicate one thing and it's hard to boil it down, but the thing that I believe makes the biggest difference is if you can consider the other person's perspective and adapt your message to their perspective, you will stand out from all of your peers as being a great communicator and you'll just be more successful at getting things done. And how much better would the world be.

Tim Newman:

Oh, vastly. I'm so glad you brought up the whole idea of framing in your book. That to me is the best chapter because that really outlines our whole conversation. So when you need help, sometimes I can help you if you just come in and start demanding things, right. That's very true I need you to do this. I need you to do this and I need you to do it. In the next 10 minutes You're going to say whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on.

Chris Fenning:

Yeah, are we here to manage my schedule? Take a step back, please. Exactly no-transcript help Exactly.

Tim Newman:

Do you, or have you ever had, anxiety in terms of public speaking?

Chris Fenning:

Oh gosh, yes, oh. People think that I, because this is my job and I communicate publicly a lot, I often get the comment oh, this is so easy for you, you teach public speaking. You must always have been, you were born with it. And that is just not true. Now. People who've known me for my whole life know that I talk a lot and, hard though it may be to believe, I used to talk a lot more than I do now. But that was in conversation, one-to-one or one-to-just-a-few.

Chris Fenning:

Actual doing things in real public terrified me. I have an early memory of this. I can give an example from when I was about six, and I can give an example from when I was about six and I can give an example from about six months ago. So quite a big time difference between the two. So when I was six at school, there was a school play and there were lots of small skits and all the kids were doing something and my role was to be the strong man and I had a leopard print outfit like the, the cartoon style strongman, and there was a broom handle with two balloons painted black on the end. That was meant to be this big barbell walk out into the room and then try and lift it but fail because it was too heavy, and then try and lift it again and fail, psych myself up and then eventually succeed. And somebody would walk on after me and just pick the thing up, sling it over their shoulders, roll their eyes and walk off. That was what was meant to happen. What actually happened was I crept onto the stage and I crouched down and I stayed there and I froze, completely froze, and I moved this thing eventually a couple of inches up. I didn't look anywhere, I didn't do any of the skit and eventually I just managed to stand up holding this thing and sort of dropped it and then ran off the skit. So the person after me did a great job, apparently, came on and did the eye roll and did everything else. It was a real eye roll, did the eye roll and did everything else. It was a real eye roll. Oh, it was so at an early age and that's not unusual. Kids are sometimes scared of things. I was scared of performing in public. Now, fast forward 35 years from there. I now teach communication skills. I get up on stage, I've talked in front of hundreds and thousands of people, but I started to record videos. Now I'm quite happy being on video with you live now. I'm quite happy having this recorded and going out into the world. But I started to record videos for courses.

Chris Fenning:

The idea of recording something that would be forever captured terrified I say six months ago this is really sort of a year and a half ago, up to six months ago and it terrified me to the point that a two minute video would take me an hour to create. I could get up on stage with five minutes notice and give a talk to a thousand people. I'd feel nervous but I'd be okay and I had to work out. Why was I being so scared? Why was I having such a strong reaction to creating too many videos? And what I realized was I wasn't familiar with it, I hadn't done it a lot and I was scared of a number of things. Are people going to judge it? It's there forever the mistaken belief that people would see a mistake and then watch it back and see the mistake again and laugh at me. All of that's rubbish. That's not true at all, because people don't care If my stuff was bad. They just stop watching and forget about it. I was very, very nervous, very nervous.

Chris Fenning:

It would take me an hour to do this two-minute video, and so I set myself a challenge. Here's the cure, and not only do I do this myself when I work with my own clients, when I help other people generally. There's something that we can do that overcomes that fear, and what I did was I then challenged myself to create 100 one minute videos. Oh, wow, okay, that would force me to create videos. They don't have to be long. I wasn't agonizing over long scripts Creating a 30 minute video would take forever but creating a one minute video felt doable.

Chris Fenning:

And if I created a hundred of them, I would go through the process a hundred times and by the end, I was no longer nervous about video and I could do things in a single take. And a one minute video took one minute rather than one hour, and it's that repetition. I was scared of video, so I had to do it. I had to work through the process lots and lots of times to get comfortable with it, and that is what any of us needs to do in any communication situation where we're nervous Find a way to practice in small, easy ways and do a lot of practice.

Tim Newman:

Well, that's the key. None of this is easy. I mean, we can lay out all of these techniques and and plans and ideas, but you have to do it and you have to practice it until it becomes yes, until it becomes habit that's habit.

Chris Fenning:

It's habit for none of this stuff. It's complicated but it simple ideas but difficult to build the habits and remember to use it in the moment. You can go on a course about giving bad feedback or giving feedback in difficult situations, giving negative feedback, and you could spend a whole day doing the most interactive workshop fantastic activities, really energized. You really got a lot from it. But you still have to use it and you have to remember to use it in the moment. Right, and that is hard Remembering to do it repeatedly, doing it and building those habits. It's such a core part of any skill building, Any skill Right.

Tim Newman:

Absolutely yeah. So is that where the whole idea of the book came from?

Chris Fenning:

For the first minute. For the first minute, yeah, no, although it does tie in very nicely because it's just about one minute. No, the idea for the first minute came from that 20 years of experience. I'd been on a number of development programs. I was on graduate development programs, manager accelerators and eventually executive path programs within large companies, and all of these programs had communication training.

Chris Fenning:

And I kept coming up against the same problem Training that would give advice that sounded good but didn't have much substance. For example, to be a good communicator, you need to be clear and concise. Oh, really Great. I think we've all been told that right. Yeah, exactly Thanks. Have you ever been taught how? No, and so I kept asking how, and the answer was always well, it depends, and it depends on this situation and that, and there was never a really good answer. So I went out to find the answer and I looked at various different models that existed and I looked at all the situations that I was communicating in, and because I couldn't find a good answer, I created one and then wrote the book, and so that's where the book came from. It was to fill a gap, to fill my own need for an answer to how to be clear and concise, right and it's genius, but we'll talk about the email book here in a second.

Tim Newman:

But the whole idea of being clear and concise and teaching people how to do it, I think everybody needs to read the book. I really do. I agree, and I've already sent emails out to everybody in my department Read the book, you get a free workbook. I mean, you go to your website, you get the free workbook. Just so happened. You know, talk about meetings. You know, after we talked the other day, I got an email for our retreat, our fall retreat, which isn't really a retreat, it's just a day of meetings in our building. That's not our normal building.

Chris Fenning:

And it's an away day, we're going to get nothing done, but in some other place, exactly.

Tim Newman:

Exactly so, uh, and I looked at it. I just I'm already dreading it, already shaking my head, and so I sent everybody in the department here, you know, read this book and maybe we'll we'll spend some time talking about it. I don't know, but the whole idea of being clear and concise is genius and that really kind of. And I go and again I'm going to jump forward to the second chapter. The whole idea of framing that to me is encapsulates everything thing. If we could just start a conversation with, with, with the framing sentence, reframing two or three sentences, I think we would be so much more productive and so much happier.

Chris Fenning:

I completely agree with you. So let's let's take a couple of minutes and explain it for for our listeners here. And framing is how we start a conversation. So we're talking about work conversations here. You can use it socially, but it was designed for work and sort of workplace transactional communication. And the reason that we frame in the first 10 to 15 seconds is because when we start talking to somebody else, they are going to have three questions that come into their mind. One is what are you talking about? Two, why are you talking to me about this? Why are you telling me? And three, what is your point? And it's not just me saying this isn't the world, according to Chris. There's a bunch of science behind it and I explain a little bit of it in the book, although I try to keep the science out of the way of the practical advice. But we have those questions what are you talking about? Why are you telling me, and what is your point? And if we don't provide the answers to those questions at the very beginning of the conversation, the other person's brain is just going to be focused on those questions. If they don't have the answers, they're literally not concentrating on our message. So framing delivers those things.

Chris Fenning:

The framework is called context, intent and key message, and it's very, very simple to do. You start with context. You say what is the topic that I want to talk about? Hey, tim, I'd like to talk to you about next week's away day. Second up is intent. Why am I telling you this? What do I want from you? So, hey, tim, I want to talk to you about next week's away day. I'd like your help with the agenda. That's my intent. I want your help.

Chris Fenning:

And the third part is the key message. This is the most important thing I need you to know. So, hey, tim, I'd like to talk to you about next week's away day. I'd like your help with the agenda. I've had two people drop out and need to fill the afternoon slot. That tells you everything you need to know about the conversation we're going to have. Yes, you've got questions. Yes, there's a bunch more information that I'm going to deliver. We're going to have a conversation that you know what I'm going to talk about, why I'm telling you and what the point is right. So you're ready and focused and not thinking about other things. You know what we're going to talk about.

Tim Newman:

We can then have that conversation exactly, and we would be talking about the book. But my section would be, you know, the first minute book. That's what we're gonna. That's that's what we would. I would convince him that that's what my session would be about. First minute.

Chris Fenning:

How to get the first minute right Exactly.

Tim Newman:

So how can framing really be used? Take it from our audience's perspective. You know most of our young professionals. Again, they struggle with basic communication skills. How can they use that? Let let's say, from a job interview perspective. What would be an example?

Chris Fenning:

oh, yes, that's nice in in the job interview and there we'll talk a little bit about the second framework as well, the structured summary, because that's very, very good for answering open-ended interview questions. But, um, in in interview there's going to be questions like tell me about a time when, or give me an example of and those are open questions. So give me an example of a difficult conversation that you had, or tell me about a time when you succeeded in a project or a task. And you have to answer a question that takes a huge amount of information and background and compress it into something without spending 30 minutes. Giving background Right, you have to be able to get the point quickly as well.

Chris Fenning:

And so, starting an answer to oh, tell me about a time when you've succeeded in a project, but you say well, I'd like to tell you about my university group project. That's the context. The intent would be I want to share a particular incident that was successful, and then the key message would be we got in on schedule despite three members of our team being out sick. Now I've told a whole story there what I'm trying to achieve, why I want to focus on a particular point and then the highlight, which is we succeeded on a tough deadline even though three people were out sick. 10 seconds it took me to say that Now I can expand my answer, but I've primed the interviewer to understand what's coming next. I've also shown that I understand the question because I've repeated parts of it back to them. So it helps with them. Make sure that my answer is sort of organized.

Tim Newman:

It shows I can organize and summarize and then sort of gives that headline so I can then go on and expand the story and hopefully they've sat up in their chair and leaned into what you're going to say because, again, like you said, you've done things that most people wouldn't do at all Exactly, and here's where you can get them from sitting up to being really impressed.

Chris Fenning:

Once you've given that 10 second introduction, you can summarize your entire story in three bullet points, literally three bullet points. If you use a method called a structured summary, which is goal problem solution or GPS, and just like the satellite navigation system that gives you direction and tells you how to get to your end destination, goal problem solution does the same, with the added bonus of involving a storytelling structure, which everybody loves, because we're social creatures and storytelling is important. So in the interview example, tell me about a time when you succeeded and I framed it with that statement of we delivered against the deadline when three people were out sick. Then I can expand my story using goal problem solution. I start with the goal. What we wanted to do, what we needed to do, was our group project needed to submit the final thesis dissertation, whichever country you're in this is a different language we submit our final dissertation thesis by the you're in. This is a different language. We submit our final dissertation thesis by the end of May. That's the goal. The interviewer then knows what you were trying to achieve big, tangible outcome that you want to achieve. So our goal was to submit our thesis by the end of May. The problem was three of our team went out sick really badly. There was a broken leg, someone got meningitis and somebody else was just out long-term sick. We lost half of our project team. In that example I actually included too much information. What I should have said I'm going to have to correct myself now.

Chris Fenning:

Our goal was to submit the thesis by the end of May. The problem was three of our team went out long-term sick halfway through the project. Our project team was cut in half. So what did we do about it? Well, our solution was the team talked to the professor to see if we could get more time. We redivided the work from those people out sick and took it on ourselves, divided those roles within the team and we put in extra hours to make sure we completed that dissertation and submitted it in time.

Chris Fenning:

So I've told a complete story. We wanted to submit our thesis by this date. There was a problem. Here's how we solved it, and by leading through the story in that organized way, the interviewer will get a complete picture, but without all that extra detail, of well, what was the thesis about and why was that date an important date to submit it by and who was the professor's name and did we go and see him or send an email or the phone? Most of that's irrelevant, right, and if they do want to know about it, they'll ask, right?

Tim Newman:

and you, we get those, they get those all the time and one that they always run. And we stopped and got a coffee on the way. Well, great, you didn't.

Chris Fenning:

You didn't bring me a coffee, so yeah, that's definitely not an info, don't need all that stuff, right, background info, um, it's human nature to include it.

Chris Fenning:

And we do it for two reasons. We, when we're talking to someone, we think they need to know everything we know to be able to understand the situation, which sort of makes sense because, well, the situation is all the stuff that we've experienced. But actually that's not true. And the second reason we do it is we just well, we feel the need to share and we can't stop ourselves, we just can't. We have to put in all of this extra detail. You couldn't possibly make a decision without knowing this stuff, right?

Tim Newman:

Exactly, it was decaf, by the way.

Chris Fenning:

Well, the one you didn't get was decaf, exactly.

Tim Newman:

Yeah, but the whole idea that we feel that we need to share it and I'm just asking this question just thinking about what you just said Is it to make the story more important? Is it to? Why is that? Why do we add those extra things that we need to want to share, need to share, but is there a subconscious reason again, is it sometime, okay?

Chris Fenning:

yeah, sometimes. So the primary reason is we're not taught how to be concise. Okay, there are no clear and concise lessons at school or university, so we're not taught how to do it. So it's not surprising that we don't do it very well. But that aside, you are there psychological reasons. Yes, there definitely are, and there isn't one answer for every situation. There are some situations where people want to cover their ass, right? Oh, the reason I didn't submit on time is excuse, excuse, excuse reason. Let me give you all the backstory, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And that is I really want to demonstrate with this weight of evidence why I'm not at fault. And you might already know I'm not at fault. You might not care who's at fault, you just want to get on with the thing Right, but I'm nervous about being at fault. So I'm going to load up all this information because I think it shields me. Another reason is the belief that somebody couldn't possibly make an informed decision unless they were informed of everything that was going on.

Chris Fenning:

And here's an example of why that's total tosh and just not true, utter rubbish. If I was one of your students, tim, and what I want to do is I want to miss next Thursday's lesson. So that's why I'm coming to talk to you Now. I've spoilt it a bit by telling you that's the point. What I could do is say oh, Tim, so my dad is out of town this week and he's had to go and help his sister because she fell down and she broke her arm. Normally she comes in to look after the dogs while he goes away for work, but she can't, obviously, because she broke her arm. Now she's doing okay, it's not bad, but he has to go and help her out and get the home set up and so on. What that means is I've got to go and look after my dad's dogs next week so he can go and help my aunt and so on.

Chris Fenning:

Can I have next Thursday off? Can I miss the lecture? And you don't care about, maybe you do, but you don't need all of that information. What you need is hi, I have a family situation. Can I miss next Thursday's lecture? Thereursday is not an important one anyway, or you may have questions for me, but I haven't gone through the whole thing about broken arms and dogs and who's coming into town. Right, forget all that. The point is can I miss next thursday's lecture?

Tim Newman:

get that out as quickly as possible yeah, because you start talking about everything else. I forget. I've already forgotten why you're, why we're even having a conversation. Where do you want to miss again?

Chris Fenning:

exactly, and I gave you that at the beginning. Right, and most of the time we don't even get that at the start. You'd have just been wondering where is this going exactly yep, all the time.

Chris Fenning:

So we do that because we think the other person needs the information. Okay, so those? Those are the three main causes. The first we're not taught how to do it. The second we're covering our ass oh, I want to shield myself in case I've done something wrong or um. The third is um is we believe you need all the information to be able to, to, uh, to make that decision.

Chris Fenning:

And there is a fourth one, which is I need to demonstrate my value. And if you're at work and your boss asked for a status update, you could say, yep, everything's on track, don't need anything from you. Do you have any questions? That's the ultimate status update, right there, super succinct and very easy to deliver. But human nature kicks in and goes oh well, here's everything I've done this week in my new detail. I am valuable, I am working, I promise I'm doing stuff, and there's that need to validate our existence by demonstrating we are producing value, which unfortunately takes a whole ton of time. That doesn't deliver any value at all and does the opposite makes us seem less capable than we are.

Tim Newman:

It seems that when we're talking to, let's just say, our boss or manager, the CEO, what have you? It seems that we fall into that, that we need to just word vomit about how, how, everything that we've done is is great, and I don't think they really care.

Chris Fenning:

They absolutely don't, unless they ask questions that that are specifically around that. So so I'm not. I'm not sure what you've been doing, tim, so tell me, give me a rundown of what you've done in this last week. Then you can give a rundown of what you've done in the last week, but still keep it brief and try and make it relevant to them. But if they say, hey, tell me about, we get asked terrible questions as well, which doesn't help.

Chris Fenning:

So, hey, what's going on at the moment? Well, that's a really broad question. I wish I started. There's a small ant's nest. Yeah, exactly, there's a little ant's nest outside. I see some birds going, it's raining, it's three o'clock. What do you need to know? But most of the bad questions aside, when we get asked so what's the status in the project or what's happening on the project, people aren't looking for tell me all the work that you've done. What they're really looking for is tell me if we're on track or if you need anything, or is the building on fire. Those are the things that they care about, because that's what we care about when we ask those questions.

Tim Newman:

Through all of this, we can't forget about the whole idea of listening. Sorry, say that again, we can't forget about the whole idea of listening. Sorry, say that again. We can't forget the whole idea of of actually listening. Oh sorry, terrible joke. No, I got it but.

Chris Fenning:

And so you laugh but when my wife says say that again. You know what I say that again. Oh, I love that, I'm going to use that. I collect dad's jokes and I think, brilliant, I like that Say that again, she doesn't like it. I'll let you know how that goes on. My end, I got a feeling. I know.

Tim Newman:

So you use it very judiciously, use a very big eye roll, yeah, but if we, if we don't actually, you know, if we ask a question and we don't actually listen to the response, then why are we asking the question?

Tim Newman:

oh yes, there's a game you can play for this, so no go, please go ahead, go on I just think it's important for everybody to understand that a lot of times when we talk about communication, we talk about us talking or I'm going to get to the writing here in a second but we talk about us talking and what we're going to say and what we want to say and how we're going to say it so that people can hear it and listen to it and get the value from it. So that people can hear it and listen to it and get the value from it. But we very rarely talk about the listening piece.

Chris Fenning:

Yes, Yep, it gets talked about a little bit under active listening, but I have a bit of a problem with active listening and who was it who talked about this in her? It was a TED talk, and Celeste Headley gave a TED talk with 10 tips for better conversations and she talks about listening and active listening in particular. And she says one of the core components of active listening is showing the other person that you're paying attention and listening, and she said the problem with that is if you're actually listening to someone, you don't have to show that you're doing it, because you will naturally be listening and you'll be giving all of the signs and indications.

Chris Fenning:

And she's totally right. So active listening is one of the things that we get taught for how to listen. But there's a game that we could play to show just how badly other people listen to the answers to their own questions and then evaluate first whether the answer answers the question and then did the original person notice that the question wasn't answered? No, they don't, and it's rare. It's really rare. It is what happened in this incident on the project. Oh well, three weeks ago we had this thing long rambling explanation that never actually explains what happened last weekend. Oh okay, Thanks, I think I've got it. Great, We'll move on.

Tim Newman:

Never answered the original question.

Chris Fenning:

And that's bad listening on both parts Didn't listen to the question, didn't answer the question, didn't listen to the answer and then moved. Answer the question. Didn't listen to the answer and then moved on. I mean just a great failure in communication there.

Chris Fenning:

And then there'll be an email Can you remind me about what happened on this? Yes, but the email is sent to everybody. Yes, yeah, we do not listen. Well, there's a line that comes up often in movies it's often quoted which is listen with the intention of understanding. Don't listen just to wait for your turn to speak.

Tim Newman:

The majority of the time, that's what we do is we're listening until it's our turn to talk, and then we're going to say whatever it is that we feel like saying Yep, yes.

Chris Fenning:

There's a technique we can use to help us build the habit back to habits again, to build the habit to listen better and when you've asked a question and somebody is speaking to you, or whether someone's just talking to you first without answering a question, play the game, get into the habit of forming a question about what they're saying before you make your comment, because if you're going to ask about what someone is telling you, you have to pay attention to it to be able to ask a reasonable question.

Chris Fenning:

They don't actually have to say the question at this point. So let's say you were talking to me about an event coming up in a couple of weeks. Instead of me going, oh yeah, what I want to do is tell you about my thoughts on that event. What I should be thinking is what question can I ask you about the information you're giving me? And then I have to pay attention to the information you're giving me so I can think about questions. What do I want to know more on? What didn't make sense? And then, if you said something that didn't quite make sense to me, I'm already prepared to ask. I haven't moved on to my topic. Say that again, that again.

Tim Newman:

There you go, nailed it. That's good, though let's put it this way, that's going to go in an email to a special colleague that we're going to play at our retreat and see how we do.

Tim Newman:

But I do want to talk about the email book. Effective email is a secret, straightforward communication work. And I think I told you I love systems, simple systems, especially when you're teaching a skill. And you nailed it again with the emails and the whole GPS. The GPS piece goes to me. It goes more perfectly with writing. To me it's easier to implement with writing than it is from the speaking.

Chris Fenning:

That's just me. Yes, it is.

Tim Newman:

Both these books are now going to be required reading for people around me from here on out.

Tim Newman:

Wow, it's good to know they're useful they are, whether whether they buy it and read it or not. I'm gonna be, you know, saying this is how we're gonna start doing things when we talk about communication with, especially with, with the younger population college students, young professionals they struggle so much with communication in general, whether it's verbal, nonverbal and written, and I really like the whole idea of the GPS system for writing emails because, again, we don't have to have, you know, three and four paragraph emails that that I get lost after the four cents.

Chris Fenning:

Just oh, you and 99% of the world, we don't read big chunks of text. We don't. So having a framework for it is One of the reasons I did. The framework was the engineer in me was crying out for a formula. I love a formula. Playground teasing taunts from the group that I was with was Fenning's got the formula. Because I always had a formula for something, I probably always had the answer. Whether it was right or wrong, I always believed I had the answer and that jest turned out to be truer than everybody realized, because now I spend my time trying to come up with the formula for clear communication in different situations and effective emails. It's just that it is a formula and a framework to fill in the blanks, to make emails short and clear, quicker to write and more likely. Proven not just because I think it's a good idea, but actually proven with studies and stats that you get better responses if you write a better email. And structuring it is really important because it meets all of the psychological needs of the recipient. What is this for? What is the purpose? What do you want me to do with it? How urgent is it? What do you need from me? Are you asking me a question or giving me an instruction. All of those questions can be clearly answered and the information can be provided in a few lines in an email. And three to four sentences tabs. Three to four sentences yeah, yeah, do you want to geek out on this for a minute there? Yes, please.

Chris Fenning:

There's a bit of science that I find fascinating. It's how we read large bodies of text. Hopefully I'm going to do something on the screen for anyone watching. But imagine an F. I'll see if I can create an F here. Hopefully that's the right way around on the screen.

Chris Fenning:

This is how we scan text.

Chris Fenning:

If you have a page of text in front of you, whether it's a web page, a newspaper article, a page in a book unless you're reading a novel, it doesn't count, because you'll read every word.

Chris Fenning:

If I present you with a page of text, we start in the top left-hand corner and we read across the first line and then we scan down the edge of the page and at various points on the page we'll just scan across a line occasionally and by using eye tracking software, a number of studies created a heat map of where we focus our attention on a page and it creates the F shape Because nobody reads every word on the page. We scan a page, scale the first line, scan down to look for line breaks, to look for headings, to look for labels, question, action, decision, and then we scan across the page at that point to see if there's something relevant. So if we send an email that is a big chunk of text, no one reads the whole thing. They do a quick scan and then they move on to the next email that's shorter because it takes less brain power to process a shorter email and our brains evolution has developed us to be lazy or efficient. I think efficient is a bit.

Tim Newman:

We'll go with efficient. We'll go with efficient.

Chris Fenning:

Yeah, we'll go with efficient Lazy. And so we efficiently say, oh, this is too much effort, I'll move on to something easier so I can be more productive. So that F shape is how we read big blocks of text and it's one of the reasons that we quickly our brains will subconsciously say too much effort, move on.

Tim Newman:

And those big emails don't get read that's so interesting about the, the heat map and the f it makes. It makes a ton of sense. I mean, when you look at you just take newspapers as a, for example not only do they not exist, but if we're reading something, when you, when usa today became what usa Today is, it was color. The articles were shorter because, again, our attention span got smaller and people weren't reading full articles. Now, if you look at how we read news, 90% of the time we're reading it on our phones and the articles are news. Articles are to four paragraphs, three to four paragraphs at most, and so we're barely getting even the full context of whatever it is that we're reading about, and we're even reading less, especially if we're looking at it from that, that whole heat map piece yep, that's that's very interesting scrolling through really quickly to find a header or call out

Chris Fenning:

wow, yeah. So if someone's writing an email, here's a couple of tips for how to make them shorter and clearer, a couple of very practical tips. First of all, write an informative subject line that has the topic and the purpose. I'm writing to you about next Thursday's lecture. I have a question, or you could say, I have a question about next Thursday's lecture. Question about next Thursday's lecture. Very clear you know that that person has a question about that thing even before you've opened the email.

Chris Fenning:

So focus on the subject line, topic plus purpose, and then, second tip, when you're in your message, repeat the topic and the purpose. Here's why I'm writing to you, here's why I'm telling you this or I have a question about X. And then, if you have a question, put it on its own line and start the line with the word question, label it. Put it on its own line with a white space above and below, not in a paragraph, not sandwiched between other things. Line break the word question has a label that asks your question. Then leave another line break. Has a label. Then I'll ask you a question. Then leave another line break. People will see it and if they see the word question, they're psychologically primed to give an answer.

Tim Newman:

And that means you're more likely to get a response and hopefully, an accurate response?

Chris Fenning:

Hopefully so. At least you've prepped them that there is a question for them to answer. Exactly the quality of the response sometimes you'll depend on. We'll work on that later.

Tim Newman:

Yeah, one thing I do want to bring up with the book as well, and again to me now it goes back to the whole. You know that we scan things. When I read a book generally for fun, I pick it up and I say, oh, this looks like a good chapter. I mean, I start from the beginning and go to the end.

Tim Newman:

I read a book a couple weeks ago that a friend wrote. He's a former PGA pro and he was writing about his experiences and he said when you read it, you need to read it from beginning to end. That's great. And I did that and I called him back. I said you know, thank you so much for telling me that, because I would have missed a bunch of things In the email. In your effective emails book, you actually say if you're a novice, please read from beginning to end. If you're a pro at it, you can pick and choose. If I were you, I'd take out that if you're a pro at it, pick and choose, still read from beginning to end. Well, yeah, because it's so important. Emails, written communication is so important, and so I thank you for that.

Chris Fenning:

Well, I appreciate the appreciation.

Tim Newman:

Again. Thanks so much for joining us today. Lots of useful information. Where can people find you and where can they buy your books?

Chris Fenning:

Yeah, they can find me. My social hangout is LinkedIn and, of course, my website is a great place to contact me, which is chrisfenningcom. You mentioned already, there's a free workbook as a download. It's a great introduction and practical guide to communicating clearly at work, and where you can buy my books is really anywhere that you like to buy books. They're available on order through all online stores, amazon being the main one, but really wherever you like to buy your books.

Tim Newman:

And I'll put the links in the show notes for everybody. But again, Chris, thank you so much for joining us Again. Lots of great information. Take care, and we'll talk to you soon.

Chris Fenning:

Thank you very much, Tim.

Tim Newman:

It's been a real pleasure All right, let's take a few minutes to reflect on a conversation with Chris Fenning. After 20 years of working in six different industries and reflecting on experiences in over 30 countries, he put his analytical mind towards solving issues in communication. We talked about the commonality of people all over the world and how various cultures view certain behaviors and patterns of communication. Chris encouraged everyone to pay attention to the people around you, whether that's upstream or downstream, and keep in mind, when we communicate, it's not about me, it's not about us, it's about the people that we're speaking to. He talks about framing communications, or adapting your messages to fit the perspective of the other person. If you clearly state what you want from someone, why you want it from that person and why or how it's relevant to that person, then you will be more successful in getting things done. Chris gave some great examples and walked us through how to use framing in our conversations and how to adapt the idea into written communications such as emails.

Tim Newman:

In terms of speaking in public and speaking with confidence, chris shares his personal fears, anxieties and nervousness associated with making videos. His concerns as to whether people would judge him and what would happen if he made a mistake sounded exactly what I hear from my clients all the time. In my opinion, his solution to create a challenge of making 100 one-minute videos was pure genius. I loved his explanation that the challenge forced him to practice and get comfortable with the process. I recommend this strategy and would also suggest checking out chrisfendingcom to take advantage of his resources and free downloadable workbook.

Tim Newman:

On behalf of the Speaking with Confidence community, we all want to thank him for helping others to become more confident speakers. Please make sure you visit speakingwithconfidencecoursecom and join our growing community. Sign up for special updates regarding the August 15th launch of the Formula for Public Speaking course. Also, be sure to subscribe to the podcast so you don't miss any episodes. Please write us a review and tell everyone why you love the podcast. You can also download, like and share the podcast with friends. Always remember your voice has the power to change the world. We'll talk to you next time. Take care, thank you.

People on this episode

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Tim Newman

Host
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Chris Fenning

Guest