When it comes to becoming a good communicator, the learning path is promisingly long and rewarding at each little step taken. Whether your goals are to gain more confidence when speaking in public or reduce the effort it takes for you or others to understand a subject clearly, you choose where to begin and how deep you want to go.

Here’s a challenge for you to think about: when you do decide to pursue a communication skill to develop, there is at least one common element each and every path shares. Can you guess what it is? That’s you. You are always there. You are the one engaging with others; the message may change format or size, the channel may vary to better suit whatever receiver will hear you. Ultimately, to you there’s always you.

My question now unfolds: how do you improve yourself when communicating? How do you increase your chances of being a good communicator, regardless of the aspect you choose to develop?

Preparation is a crucial skill to have. Most people praise posture, confidence and tone of voice; only a few appreciate the prep work under a powerful presentation or a productive meeting. Today we’ll explore the impact of preparation with a couple of examples and, after that, how to do so regardless of the situation.

How to prepare?

So how is it that I prepare my message particularly for the podcast? Here’s what I do:

When I come up with an idea, I start by capturing it. I tend to do it in a way that is profitable. What I mean by that is that it must be valuable and somewhat catchy. Take this episode, for instance — it’s called “Preparation is the cornerstone of good communication”, an actual sentence that leads you to wonder how important it is to prepare. Makes sense?

Then, I ask what the goal is. I immediately ask the following questions:

1. What is the goal of learning about that idea?
2. What is the impact the audience should expect if they adopt it?
3. How can I frame it in a way that gets their attention?

These questions will tell if the idea is valuable or not. If it is, then I start writing an introductory section that frames the idea to the audience. If not, I either explore the idea deeper, or I archive it. There have been times before where I had an idea that was not productive at one point in time and a few weeks or months later it made more sense and I picked it up again.

The next step is to break down that idea into key points. Usually 3 points are the sweet spot, there’s something magical about that number. If there’s more than 3, I’ll surely add them to the list, and usually not more than 7 so they stay memorable for both the audience and myself. If I’m recording, then it’s a whole lot easier because I have the script in front of me. However, the audience does not, and they are the ones who should find the message easy to comprehend. Good techniques for making those key points fun and memorable are the use of mnemonics, acronyms, acrostics and key words.

After the breakdown, I’ll support each of those key points with important elements such as data, stories or other structures. It’s good to give proper context, a little bit of exploration and a conclusion as they help the audience navigate and comprehend each key point better. At the end of each key point, I’ll attempt to connect it to the previous point and to the next point. This is easier to do when you have visuals like when you’re presenting a talk or at a meeting. If this isn’t possible like over the radio or on the phone then I’ll use connecting words, while bringing those key topics to the moment.

Finally, I’ll summarize the whole idea so that the audience has the chance to recollect all their thoughts on the subject in around a minute, maybe less. If I want to challenge them outside of the podcast, I’ll drop an open question to reflect on and even share in a more open space like LinkedIn.

Example scenario

Regardless of the topic or scenario, there are sound, universal principles of preparation. Here’s the sequence: capture, goal, impact, framing, breakdown, support and summary.

Consider an important meeting that requires a couple of decisions to be made on a top priority issue. Say you’re a product designer, part of a discovery team that comes up with ideas to solve customer problems in your app. Let’s start our process:

1. The main topic to capture is that there are 5 possible solutions for a problem.
2. The goal is to determine the best one.
3. The impact of the meeting is that your team understands clearly what those solutions are, they get a chance to review and they make a decision on the spot.
4. The framing is somewhat simple: your customers deserve the best solution as efficiently and effectively as you can deliver them. The team’s focus on deciding on the solution will keep levels of customer satisfaction high.
5. The way you split the meeting’s key topic consists of each possible solution you’re presenting.
6. To support each solution, you present wireframes, prototypes and data from customers like surveys, interviews, or app metrics. Because everyone else might not be a designer as you are, the way you bring each solution for their review and approval should be shaped around their level of understanding and own context. An engineer might not need to know every study you’ve conducted on usability to the detail, and the product manager might not need to know the exact color codes you’ve selected for each design proposal. Carefully picking the right level of information is crucial.
7. At the end of the meeting, you make sure to summarize the outcome of the meeting. You do this by confirming all decisions made to the group, along with any possible action items that were created.

Conclusion

The cornerstone of good communication is preparation. If you’re going to deliver that important meeting, if you’re making decisions with your team, or if you’re having direct conversations with clients or prospects, you will find immediate benefits. Properly take note of the subject, determine a goal, expect the impact of what you’re aiming for, frame the message well, break it down into key topics and support it with evidence. You will notice that the conversation becomes much more fluid, your audience is more engaged and you will sound more confident.