A note on context: I’ve been watching the headlines, reading about what’s happening in Minneapolis, in Davos, and points between…and woof, what a moment we’re living in. It’s all too much to understand/process/react coherently to.
But. We can try. And I think we can do a little better using our words to describe the state of the world/our work without leaning so much on clichés and generalizations.
Did anyone ever tell you, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all?”
It’s good advice, and my spin for business leaders is:
“If you don’t have anything specific to say, dig a little deeper.”
Look, I get it. We’re all swimming upstream through constantly swirling change. It’s hard to know which way is up, and impossible to know what’s coming in tomorrow’s headlines.
But that chaos and change? It’s common, shared knowledge. If you’re trying to establish yourself as a thought leader and to build a platform of ideas, you have to say something else beyond “times sure are changing fast.”
This week, I paid close attention to the experts from around the world who were in Davos. I watched how hard it was to summarize such a chaotic event.
Some people reacted to the chaos with bland statements like, “Everyone is talking about geopolitical uncertainty.”
Yes. Right. I surmised as much.
But…what else?
As a ghostwriter watching from the wings, I was cheering on the leaders who took a different approach — who took the chance to go deeper, analyze what they’d been hearing, relate the big-picture headlines to their work, and lead.
How to pinpoint your message
For that first group of leaders who were flummoxed and couldn’t find the words, I have some follow-up questions. If you were a leader in Davos this week and we got on the phone, I’d have asked you:
- What does that uncertainty mean?
- How are you making different decisions today because of that uncertainty?
- What might be coming around the corner next as a result of the current changes?
- What are people getting wrong or misunderstanding right now?
- What conversations have you had this week that have given you a new perspective?
In other words, get specific.
This advice works whether you’re talking geopolitics in Davos, attending a conference about AI, or reporting in from your team’s quarterly meeting.
Instead of just saying “everyone’s talking about AI!” or “we have a lot of big plans!” find a way to go one step further:
- Cite one specific AI-powered development.
- Note one thing that surprised you.
- Lay out one next step you’re going to take.
If you don’t have anything specific to say, dig a little deeper.
Think harder about how you’d answer follow-up questions. Examine the ideas bubbling right below the surface.
Every time we each dig a little deeper and use our words a little more thoughtfully, we make progress toward making sense of the chaos and uncertainty around us.
