How Great Leaders Communicate

June 12, 2023 Carmine Gallo for Harvard Business Review

image courtesy- Just Food

– Carmine Gallo for Harvard Business Review

“If you cannot simplify a message and communicate it compellingly, believe me, you cannot get the masses
to follow you.”
– Indira Nooyi , Former CEO, Pepsi
1. Use short words to talk about hard things
The author opines that Long, complicated sentences make written ideas hard to understand — they’re
mentally draining and demand more concentration. You’ll win more fans if you replace long words and
sentences with short ones.
“If you care about being thought credible and intelligent, do not use complex language where simpler
language will do,” writes Nobel prize–winning economist Daniel Kahneman in Thinking, Fast and Slow. He
argues that persuasive speakers and writers do everything they can to reduce “cognitive strain.”
Also he gives an example of how Software tools like Grammarly assess writing quality by generating a
numerical readability score. The score assigns a grade level to writing samples. For example, a document
written for a person with at least an eighth-grade education (the average 13-year-old in the U.S.) is
considered “very easy to read.” It does not imply that your writing sounds like an eighth grader wrote it. It
simply means that your sophisticated arguments are easy to grasp — and ideas that are easy to
understand are more persuasive.

For example, in 2007, Bezos explained the benefits of Amazon’s newly introduced Kindle in a paragraph a
seventh grader could understand:

If you come across a word you don’t recognize, you can look it up easily. You can search your books. Your
margin notes and under linings are stored on the server-side in the “cloud,” where they can’t be lost. Kindle
keeps your place in each of the books you’re reading, automatically. If your eyes are tired, you can change
the font size. Our vision for Kindle is every book ever printed in any language, all available in less than 60
seconds.
Overall, the author suggests that using simple language adds more credibility and does not actually dumb
down the content but rather outsmarts the competition.

2. Choose sticky metaphors to reinforce key concepts
A metaphor is a powerful tool that compares abstract ideas to familiar concepts. The author gives
an example of how Chris Hadfield a Canadian Astronaut a talented TED talks star taps into the
power of metaphors to describe an indescribable event as below:
Six seconds before launch, suddenly, this beast starts roaring like a dragon starting to breathe fire.
You’re like a little leaf in a hurricane…As those engines light, you feel like you’re in the jaws of an
enormous dog that is shaking you and physically pummeling you with power.

The author also mentions Warren Buffett who understands the power of metaphor.
In the business news or follow the stock market, the audience gets to hear the phrase “moats and
castles” attributed to companies that dominate an industry that’s difficult for competitors to enter.
Buffett popularized the phrase at a 1995 Berkshire Hathaway meeting when he said, “The most
important thing we do is to find a business with a wide and long-lasting moat around it, protecting a
terrific economic castle with an honest lord in charge of the castle.”
In this case the author explains that the castle metaphor is a concise shortcut, a vivid explanation
for a complex system of data and information that Buffett and his team use to evaluate potential
investments.

3. Humanize data to create value
The author opines that the trick to reducing cognitive load and making any data point interesting is to
humanize it by placing the number in perspective. Just merely showing them PowerPoint slides with
statistics and charts only adds cognitive weight, draining the mental energy.
One great example the author provides is of the famed astrophysicist and science educator Neil
deGrasse Tyson.
One of Tyson’s famous examples of humanizing data occurred in 1997 when NASA launched the
Cassini space probe to explore Saturn. Skeptics questioned its $3 billion price tag, and so Tyson appeared
on television talk shows to educate the public on the benefits of the mission. But first, he had to deal with
the price shock, so he pulled a data comparison out of his rhetorical toolbelt. He explained that the $3
billion would be spread over eight years. He added that Americans spend more on lip balm every year than
NASA would spend on the mission over that timeline.
So to demonstrate the value of your idea, humanize data and make it relevant to your listeners.

4. Make mission your mantra to align teams

The author gives a brilliant anecdote on how in 1957, a power outage knocked out electricity
to large parts of Wisconsin and Minnesota. Earl Bakken, a medical device repairman working in his
garage, saw an opportunity to create innovations in the field. So he built the first battery-powered
pacemaker that kept working even when the power went out.
At that moment, Bakken’s life took on a purpose beyond just fixing things. He was on a
mission to “alleviate pain, restore health, and extend life.”
The author states that the mission purpose of Bakken has stuck to its 90,000 employees
worldwide more than 50 years after founding Medtronic. Medtronic’s employees are driven by the
same six words that inspired Bakken: alleviate pain, restore health, extend life.
So the author proves with these examples that Transformational leaders overcommunicate.
They repeat the mission so often, it becomes a mantra. A mantra is a statement or slogan that
builds in strength as it’s repeated