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Deliver The Punchline First

May 12, 2022 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Deliver The Punchline First = Get to the Point

When Sergey Brin and Larry Page set about to secure early funding for Google, they initiated a presentation at Sequoia Capital, one of the world’s premier venture capital firms, with the logline “Google organizes the world’s information and makes it universally accessible.”

Most busy executives don’t want to sit through a 50-slide presentation. They don’t have the patience to wait for the punchline.

Begin with the conclusion and then go through the rest of your slide deck: your proposals, theses, assumptions, your line of thinking, and the arguments, pro and con.

Meaning, Then Details

Cognitive psychologists have argued that the brain pays more attention to the core of an idea than to its details.

According to the University of Washington molecular biologist John Medina, the human brain craves meaning before details. In Brain Rules (2014,) Medina notes, “Normally, if we don’t know the gist–the meaning–of information, we are unlikely to pay attention to its details. The brain selects meaning-laden information for further processing and leaves the rest alone.”

When listeners comprehend the overarching idea of a pitch, they’ll find it easier to synthesize and digest the information.

Begin Your Next Executive Presentation with the Final Summary Slide First

Most executives have limited willpower and suffer “decision fatigue.” Don’t overload them with less-important details before asking them to decide in your favor. Your “executive summary” slide may be the only one that will get full attention. So make it perfect!

  • Practice, practice, practice. Few people, if any, have the rhetorical ability to make a persuasive 15-second speech about their significant ideas. The best speakers are the best because they rehearse and get feedback.
  • Less is more. After getting prized facetime with executives, many talented young professionals produce large slide decks to dazzle the executives with their intelligence and ingenuity. Don’t.
  • Simplify your “executive summary” message. Perceptive executives tend to be somewhat skeptical of things that ought to be simple but have become too complicated.
  • Meaning, then detail. The brain processes meaning before detail, and the brain likes hierarchy. Start with the general idea and then present information in a structured, hierarchical approach. Make sure that each detail you communicate traces back to the core concept of your presentation.

Idea for Impact: Get to the Point

Tell busy people what they need to know upfront. Communicate like a newsperson: What’s the number one thing your audience needs to know? Say that first. Then build out from there, keeping the most essential particulars up top.

There’s another smart—if devious—benefit of putting the cart before the horse: delivering your “punchline” first can hook your audience with a compelling proposal first, and then cash in on the confirmation bias to sway them to your case.

Spy thriller novelist Graeme Shimmin offers this excellent guide to writing a killer punchline, logline, or elevator speech.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Persuade Others to See Things Your Way: Use Aristotle’s Ethos, Logos, Pathos, and Timing
  2. Facts Alone Can’t Sell: Lessons from the Intel Pentium Integer Bug Disaster
  3. What Happens When You Talk About Too Many Goals
  4. Here’s a Tactic to Sell Change: As a Natural Progression
  5. Never Give a Boring Presentation Again

Filed Under: Effective Communication, Mental Models Tagged With: Communication, Critical Thinking, Meetings, Negotiation, Persuasion, Presentations

What Most People Get Wrong About Focus

May 5, 2022 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

'Choose Wonder Over Worry' by Amber Rae (ISBN 0385491743) In Choose Wonder Over Worry (2018) self-help author Amber Rae recalls novelist Elizabeth Gilbert’s interaction with a wise older lady who was helping Gilbert with her struggles as a writer:

Lady: “What are you willing to give up in order to have the life you keep saying you want?”

Gilbert: “You’re right—I need to start saying no to things I don’t want to do.”

Lady: “No, it’s much harder than that. You need to learn to start saying no to things you _do_ want to do, with the recognition that you have only one life, and you don’t have time and energy for everything.”

This anecdote is such a powerful illustration of how saying ‘no’ is so much easier when you’re clear about your priorities.

Saying 'no' is so much easier when you're clear about your priorities That’s what focus really is—saying ‘no’ to things you’d like to do so that you can free up your time to focus on the pursuits that truly matter—even tasks you have to do, even if they don’t energize and excite you.

Idea for Impact: Setting boundaries isn’t always easy, but it’s essential to establish an overall sense of well-being. Every ‘no’ is a ‘yes’ to something else.

  • Don’t find any excuse to say ‘yes’ to what shouldn’t be done.
  • Don’t find any reason to say ‘no’ to what should be done.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Don’t Say “Yes” When You Really Want to Say “No”
  2. Here’s a Tactic to Sell Change: As a Natural Progression
  3. This Manager’s Change Initiatives Lacked Ethos, Pathos, Logos: Case Study on Aristotle’s Persuasion Framework
  4. Everything in Life Has an Opportunity Cost
  5. How to Make Others Feel They Owe You One: Reciprocity and Social Influence

Filed Under: Sharpening Your Skills Tagged With: Assertiveness, Balance, Communication, Decision-Making, Likeability, Negotiation, Persuasion, Relationships, Time Management

The Rule of Three

February 24, 2022 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Rule of Three---Persuasive Technique A familiar technique in rhetoric is to group in threes because people can hold only a few items in short-term “working” memory.

  • The Olympic motto: Faster, Higher, Stronger
  • Rights proclaimed by the Declaration of Independence: Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness
  • Fire safety technique taught to children: Stop, Drop and Roll (should their clothes catch fire)

Three-part lists are particularly appealing because they suggest unity and wholeness. Lists comprising only two items seem inadequate. Lists of four or more are unlikely to be recalled entirely.

Idea for Impact: Follow the rule of three to create simple, concrete, and memorable messaging in persuasion—be it in arguing, storytelling, or advertising.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. What Happens When You Talk About Too Many Goals
  2. This Manager’s Change Initiatives Lacked Ethos, Pathos, Logos: Case Study on Aristotle’s Persuasion Framework
  3. Persuade Others to See Things Your Way: Use Aristotle’s Ethos, Logos, Pathos, and Timing
  4. Facts Alone Can’t Sell: Lessons from the Intel Pentium Integer Bug Disaster
  5. Don’t Say “Yes” When You Really Want to Say “No”

Filed Under: Effective Communication, Mental Models, Sharpening Your Skills Tagged With: Assertiveness, Communication, Goals, Persuasion, Presentations

Checking Email in the Morning is an Excuse for Those Who Lack Direction

February 21, 2022 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

For most people, email is a window into what’s changed—what’s important and urgent. But if you open your swiftly-filling inbox first thing in the morning, you’ll find a hundred and one disruptions in the offing. It’ll be hard to settle your mind down and focus.

Don’t use email to source your morning to-do list. Responding to others’ needs and bouncing from task to task can derail you from what’s more important or more difficult—researching something, writing, planning, thinking, problem-solving, for example. Do those things first, when you’re freshest.

'Never Check Email In The Morning' by Julie Morgenstern (ISBN 0743250885) Productivity consultant Julie Morgenstern wrote a popular book about this theme: Never Check Email In The Morning (2005) prompts you to find a way to start checking mail less often. Morgenstern argues that email-free time in the morning will snowball into a productive day.

If you must check email first thing in the morning—say, when your job involves communicating with people—set a time limit and look for just those pieces of information that’ll help you forwards.

Idea for Impact: Put yourself in the driving seat; don’t let events drive you

Morgenstern addresses the underlying discipline you need for how you prepare—or fail to prepare—to address the daily influx of demands on our attention. Intentionally choose to do something that requires your single-minded attention, whether relaxing or productive.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. How to Email Busy People
  2. Save Yourself from Email Overload by Checking Email Just Three Times a Day
  3. How to Organize Your Inbox & Reduce Email Stress
  4. Personal Energy: How to Manage It and Get More Done // Summary of ‘The Power of Full Engagement’
  5. Keep Your Eyes on the Prize [Two-Minute Mentor #9]

Filed Under: Effective Communication Tagged With: Communication, Discipline, Email, Getting Things Done, Time Management

Each Temperament Has Its Own Language

November 18, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

From Dr. Irmgard Schlögl’s The Wisdom of the Zen Masters (1976) (she was later Ven. Myokyo-ni, Rinzai Zen Buddhist nun at the Zen Centre in London):

An elder Zen monk on his pilgrimage put up in a monastery. He came across another monk who was also on the pilgrimage. The two discovered that they had much in common, and decided next morning to continue together.

They came to a river where the ferryboat had just left. The elder took a seat to wait for its return. His new friend continued however, walking over the water.

Halfway across, he turned around and beckoned the elder to follow, “You can do it, too. Just have confidence and tread on.” The elder shook his head and stayed put.

“If you are scared, I’ll help you across. You see I can do it without much trouble.” Yet again, the elder shook his head.

The other reached the other bank of the river. He waited there until the ferry had brought the elder over. “Why did you hang back like that?” he asked.

“And what have you gained by rushing like that?” replied the elder.

“Had I known what you were like, I would not have taken up company with you.”

Wishing him farewell, the elder resumed his pilgrimage on his own.

Temperament Clashes Exist to Some Extent in Almost All Relationships Temperament clashes exist to some extent in almost all relationships. The language of camaraderie that two people share so effortlessly at some moments can unravel at others.

Sometimes each person believes they are deliberately communicating their needs and values, when indeed little gets through because each is working from different core assumptions and expectations—conveying and interpreting language, gestures, and intent differently, or seeking a different set of signals.

Idea for Impact: Each temperament has its own language.

Each of us has our own expectations of relating in an interpersonal relationship. When there are problems, don’t always attempt to “fix” them or back off and distance yourself. Simply give the other more space to be who they are. Seek to understand.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. People Feel Loved in Different Ways // Summary of Greg Chapman’s The Five Love Languages
  2. Psychoanalyst Erich Fromm on the Art of Love and Unselfish Understanding
  3. Entitlement and Anger Go Together
  4. Change Your Perspective, Change Your Reactions
  5. If You Want to Be Loved, Love

Filed Under: Effective Communication, Living the Good Life Tagged With: Attitudes, Communication, Conversations, Feedback, Getting Along, Listening, Meaning, Parables, Relationships

Avoid Blame Language

November 17, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Refrain from using the terms “always” and “never” when you’re in a disagreement.

Avoid Blame Language Making statements like “You never think about anyone but yourself” or “You always ignore how I feel!” provokes defensiveness because of the apparent exaggeration.

The actual conversation gets abstracted because the other person understandably resists the all-or-nothing argument.

Making negative judgments or proclamations about the other in extreme, absolute terms gives no wiggle room because making global attacks on their entire personality.

Idea for Impact: Try to voice your concerns in a way that focuses on your own feelings and how the other’s behavior affects you. Try “I” statements, such as “I feel neglected when you make plans without me.”

Wondering what to read next?

  1. A Trick to Help you Praise At Least Three People Every Day
  2. How to Have a Decent Discussion with Those You Love but Disagree With
  3. People Feel Loved in Different Ways // Summary of Greg Chapman’s The Five Love Languages
  4. Each Temperament Has Its Own Language
  5. Psychoanalyst Erich Fromm on the Art of Love and Unselfish Understanding

Filed Under: Effective Communication, Managing People Tagged With: Anger, Communication, Etiquette, Feedback, Relationships, Social Skills

How to Mediate in a Dispute

October 11, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

How to Mediate in a Dispute

In mediation, the parties in disagreement work out a mutually acceptable solution with the help of a neutral, third party mediator.

If you’ve been called to serve as a go-between in a dispute, here’s what you can do to help promote mutual understanding and resolution:

  1. Set ground rules. Agree on how much time you’ll give to the mediation meeting. Keep the meeting close-ended. If there’re more than two parties, each with different views of a dispute, engage more than one mediator.
  2. Have each party prepare a brief summary of their positions before the mediation and send them to you, and, ideally, to each other. The brief can explain positions, rationale, and motivation. The brief can also contain each party’s summary understanding of the opposing party’s arguments and counterarguments.
  3. Insist that the each party have a clear understanding of their underlying intentions. What’s their best understanding of the basic objectives? What do they want to achieve? What’s rigid? What’s flexible? What are they willing to bargain?
  4. At the start of the mediation meeting, remind each party that mediation is a voluntary process. Your role is to help the parties reach an agreement, not to reach an agreement for them. Say, “Nothing lasting will happen unless each of you participates in the solution. Any agreement you’re able to reach must be your own.”
  5. Announce that your intention is to foster the interaction by helping each party understand one another’s perspectives and expectations. Encourage them to consider a wide range of solutions and to shun false dilemmas (“either-or” approach.) Push them to understand the other party’s underlying interests, not just their stated positions.
  6. Outline how they’ll work together during the process. Get them to agree that they’ll deal with matters in a non-confrontational way and be open-minded about what the other wants.
  7. Let each party make a preliminary presentation without interruption from the other parties. Then, encourage each party to respond directly to the other’s opening statements.
  8. If the communications break down completely, restart the mediation process by separating the parties and talking to each party separately. Go between the two rooms to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of each position and to exchange offers. Continue the interchange until you’ve helped define an agreeable compromise.
  9. Role of a Mediator In The Process Of Win-Win Negotiation When you’re talking to each party separately during a break down in the discussions, help each party hear the views of the other and identify areas of common ground for a resolution. After independent caucuses, if possible, bring the parties back together to negotiate directly.
  10. Don’t stop each party from venting their frustrations, but try to keep them under control. If there’s rambling, gently pull the conversation back. Refocus on what needs to be achieved. Encourage them to remain open to persuasion.
  11. Even with a well thought-out approach, some disagreements turn ugly. Re-focus the dialogue on the future. Remind the parties that they can’t fight over something that’s already happened, but they can set a course for going forward.
  12. If the parties come to a resolution, draft the terms of a binding agreement and have both parties review it and sign it. Make sure the parties own the resolution, because they’re the ones who’ll live with the consequences.
  13. If the parties don’t reach an agreement, help them decide whether it’d be helpful to meet again later, use a different mediator, or try other ways to resolve the issues.

These books are most helpful in negotiations, either when you’re the mediator or one of the parties in conflict: Roger Fisher et al’s Getting to Yes (1991, 2011; my summary) and Kerry Patterson et al’s Crucial Conversations (2011.)

Wondering what to read next?

  1. How to Have a Decent Discussion with Those You Love but Disagree With
  2. Become a Smart, Restrained Communicator Like Benjamin Franklin
  3. How to Gain Empathic Insight during a Conflict
  4. Don’t Ignore the Counterevidence
  5. Benefits, Not Boasts

Filed Under: Effective Communication, Managing People, Mental Models Tagged With: Communication, Conflict, Conversations, Getting Along, Negotiation, Persuasion, Social Skills

The More You Write, The Better You Become

September 13, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi 1 Comment

Good writing is hard. No matter how much you practice, writing rarely seems to get easier.

The following guidelines are some of the most basic writing advice around, but they’re often overlooked.

  • The More You Write, The Better You Become Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly. Keep reminding yourself whom you’re writing for. Tailor your message for this audience.
  • Write from a plan. Write toward an ending. If you aren’t clear about your purpose, your reader won’t be either.
  • Be specific. Specifics outsell generalities. Restructure your sentences and try to say more with fewer words.
  • Avoid superlatives—fabulous, incredible, fantastic, always, never, and so on. Leave the exaggeration to used-car salespeople.
  • Lead with your most significant ideas. Keep your message simple. Prune needless words. Short sentences and common vocabulary make your material as palatable as possible.
  • Provide adequate supporting information to be compelling and helpful enough, but don’t over-complicate your message.
  • Tune your voice. Read drafts aloud. Examine for both form and content. Redraft. Rephrase. Reword. Revise. Rework.

Idea for Impact: If you want to get earnest about writing better, add these two reference works to your shelf: William Strunk and E. B. White’s The Elements of Style (1918) and William Zinsser’s On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction (1980.)

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Persuade Others to See Things Your Way: Use Aristotle’s Ethos, Logos, Pathos, and Timing
  2. What Happens When You Talk About Too Many Goals
  3. The Rule of Three
  4. This Manager’s Change Initiatives Lacked Ethos, Pathos, Logos: Case Study on Aristotle’s Persuasion Framework
  5. Facts Alone Can’t Sell: Lessons from the Intel Pentium Integer Bug Disaster

Filed Under: Effective Communication, Sharpening Your Skills Tagged With: Communication, Persuasion, Presentations, Writing

Never Accept an Anecdote at Face Value

February 19, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Human beings generally find anecdotes highly compelling. We’re not transformed as much by facts and statistics as we are by stories.

But anecdotes aren’t often objective. Anecdotes are uncontrolled individual observations—sometimes no more than one.

Never Accept an Anecdote at Face Value Reported experience is subjective. Our recollections are ever-changing, and they’re often amazingly imprecise. We often misrepresent events to agree with the audience—even embellish with made-up minutiae to render our stories more compelling.

And for that reason, anecdotes are usually the weakest form of evidence. Anecdotes are subject to a host of biases such as confirmation bias, generalization, and cherry-picking. Moreover, for every anecdote, an equal and contrary anecdote can be proffered.

Idea for Impact: Be deeply suspicious of anecdotes. Arguments that draw on anecdotal evidence to make broad generalizations are liable to be fallacious.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. How to Gain Empathic Insight during a Conflict
  2. The Data Never “Says”
  3. Persuade Others to See Things Your Way: Use Aristotle’s Ethos, Logos, Pathos, and Timing
  4. Facts Alone Can’t Sell: Lessons from the Intel Pentium Integer Bug Disaster
  5. Don’t Ignore the Counterevidence

Filed Under: Sharpening Your Skills Tagged With: Bias, Communication, Critical Thinking, Persuasion

People Feel Loved in Different Ways // Summary of Greg Chapman’s The Five Love Languages

February 15, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

The ‘Five Love Languages’ is this notion that people express love differently, and people feel loved in different ways. The term was familiarized by Greg Chapman’s The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate (1992.)

'The 5 Love Languages' by Gary Chapman (ISBN 080241270X) Chapman identifies the types of expression and perception as in an interpersonal relationship as the five “love languages:” (1) words of affirmation, (2) quality time, (3) receiving gifts, (4) acts of service, and (5) the physical touch.

The Five Love Languages gives several case studies to show that your sweetie will feel loved when you express love in a language that is natural to her. If love is expressed in a different language, she’s unlikely to receive your message of love.

  • Each of us has a primary love-language (and often secondary and tertiary ones.) Couples seldom share the same preferences. Learn to speak the language of your sweetie. You may be showing your love regularly, just not in the way your sweetie wants to receive love.
  • Chapman believes love-language-preferences tend to be fixed throughout our lives.
  • To help identify your love-language, focus on the way you most frequently express love. Often, what you give is what you need. “We speak and understand best our native language.”
  • Determining which love-language your sweetie speaks can be challenging. If in doubt, just ask. Try out different ways of expressing your love and be sensitive to what gets a better response.
  • Be more observant of your partner’s preferences. Get better at reading them—be mindful of how your partner may be showing you love. “People tend to criticize their spouse most loudly in the area where they themselves have the deepest emotional need.”
  • Even in close relationships, individuals are afraid to ask what they want. They feel vulnerable—or don’t want to appear needy.
  • All individuals have a “love tank” that needs to be topped up frequently by their loved ones in different ways.
  • Exploring the love-languages with your sweetie can spark a more in-depth conversation.
  • Become fluent in all the five love-languages. The framework can also improve and illuminate all kinds of other relationships—with parents, children, friends, and perhaps employees (professionally and platonically, of course.)

Relationships are a Lot of Work - the Five Love Languages (Credit: Renate Vanaga at Unsplash) Recommendation: Quick-Read through Greg Chapman’s The Five Love Languages. It’s a convenient formulation, and it’s simple, and it’s relatable. You may find the book’s tone a tad preachy and hinting at Evangelical Christian attitudes (Chapman is a Southern Baptist pastor and holds a Ph.D. in adult education.)

Nonetheless, The Five Love Languages is a practical approach. This framework isn’t a cure-all to marital and relationship issues, but it is a stepping-stone toward breaking communication barriers.

Chapman’s guidance is convenient given that most people aren’t comfortable expressing their likes and dislikes. And, in return, they hate struggling to guess their partners’ likes and dislikes.

Idea for Impact: Relationships are a lot of work. Prioritize your loved ones. Doing nothing is not one of the five love-languages.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Psychoanalyst Erich Fromm on the Art of Love and Unselfish Understanding
  2. Each Temperament Has Its Own Language
  3. If You Want to Be Loved, Love
  4. A Trick to Help you Praise At Least Three People Every Day
  5. Could Limiting Social Media Reduce Your Anxiety About Work?

Filed Under: Effective Communication, Sharpening Your Skills Tagged With: Attitudes, Communication, Conversations, Feedback, Getting Along, Meaning, Philosophy, Relationships, Virtues

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About: Nagesh Belludi [hire] is a St. Petersburg, Florida-based freethinker, investor, and leadership coach. He specializes in helping executives and companies ensure that the overall quality of their decision-making benefits isn’t compromised by a lack of a big-picture understanding.

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