Lessons from a Cambridge Graduate

This week I was coaching a Cambridge Graduate, post-PHD, super intelligent, who is working in robotics. As we were going through his pitch I told him I wanted short sentences. He said, 'that’s exactly what it was like at Cambridge. As your degree went on, your essays got shorter because you actually knew what you were talking about'. Less is more. A long, waffly essay produced in the first year of a degree at one of the world’s best universities is a smoke-screen for 'I don’t know much about this but I must look very clever'. And it’s just the same for business. It’s time to stop trying to sound important and talk with authority.

How?

Your brain has probably learned to write long and be waffly. So it’s time to get playful – as you write, map out your presentation, force yourself to use short sentences, with each sentence only having one point. Maybe even half a point. This helps you get to the point you want your audience to hear as quickly as possible. You are not rushing, you are being intentional with the time you have. We only have an 8-second attention span now (which is less than a goldfish) so people will forget. But if you imagine that every sentence gives the brain a reset so they don't forget, that will keep you on your toes as a storyteller and keep your audience on their toes as listeners.

Picture is what you need to include in your sentences. And is how you get to the point quickly. Here’s a test for you: if you were to look over or remember your last conversation where you had high-stakes information to give, see how many of your sentences included a picture. Where there was no picture there was confusion, there was probably waffle and therefore longer sentences. Then a sense of panic as you try to get to the end of what you want to say. But where there was picture there was clarity, and either agreement to what you were asking for, or helpful questions to move the request forward, or a robust back and forth. A picture doesn’t have to be a waterfall with a rainbow. In fact it mustn’t be. It must be relevant to your presentation. It is a mindset weaved into your text. It is the structure of a sentence and a meeting and can look like this: 'In this meeting I would like us to assess the five pillars of our product to see which ones are standing up and which ones are falling down'. There is a picture, structure, direction. It’s not random, it’s not waffly, it’s specific. Here’s another: 'I have a proposal that will increase our profits by 20%'. That is specific and full of picture. It is not 'the figures represent stakeholder engagement and the ARR that the POC is enabling the EXCO to execute on'. Now that is waffle.

Back to my Cambridge post-DOC client. As we headed into day two he said, 'I need an entry and an exit for every slide. Then that will help me know where I am going'. This is GOLD. In coaching speak I would say this: having an entry and exit will give you confidence and clarity. Everything else in-between will work out because you know where you have been and where you are going. All you need is a line. And to be confident with that line. It is the difference between leaping off a cliff not knowing what is coming next, and swinging on a trapeze. You still have to leap but it is from a place of skill and understanding what is next. I am determined to build up a bank of entry and exit lines for my clients so when you have yours, please do send them to me! Who knows, we may even create a little hacking book that you can use.

Don’t use AI to get the sentences and picture for you. If you want to collate information, do it. If you want to tweak your sentences, that’s okay. If you want it to achieve a written task that is measured by pass or fail it’s great. The Economist says it increases homework results by 18%. That’s great for homework, where you have to pass a test or tick a box. But you are beyond this. You need to use your own voice in the real world. And I have noticed as AI increases, that AI has its own voice and is too obvious to spot. It sounds like this: too confident, making short statements with no substance and you would only read in an advert. If you wouldn’t say that AI-generated phrase out loud, don’t use it.

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