Keep it Simple Silly!

Here is another blog from team IBS and one that is written by me after a long long time!!! 

So what is it that took me so long to break this jinx? Was it that I had something called a writer’s block as Mr. Stephen King calls it? No, I write my own personal blog at regular intervals. Was it that I did not find a suitable idea? No here too. There are a lot of ideas I get on and off which come as special brain waves and I have this “aha” moment where I want to wake up at 00:00 hrs and write about them (like I am right now) but when I start toying with that topic in my mind, I simply cannot find enough substance to add to it. I mean I don’t want to just go ahead and write a blog on 4Ps and 5Qs (;-p).

But here I am sitting in the middle of the night and furiously typing away (it is a pleasure to be typing away on a Mac anyways!) all thanks to Mr. Joel Spolsky (do not fret if you do not know him or have not heard of him as I did not know of this name till two days back!). This blog is prompted by a book he has written called “Smart and gets things done!“. No this blog is not about the book (I will write about this in my personal blog maladhalani.blogspot.com) but I would however recommend this book HEAVILY and it has to be one of the best books I have read.

This blog is about communication. I want to share here a few things, basics as I would refer to them, of communication which I think Mr. Spolsky has used so effectively in his book (it took me just three hours to finish the book and no it is not a suspense thriller, it is a book on how to hire people but I simply could not put it down!).

#1: Simplicity

There is simply no substitute for simple language! It may be that you have memorized the oxford dictionary cover to cover or you simply like to keep the thesaurus word map open when you are typing something, but using heavy vocabulary is just plain inefficient! Nothing like getting your point across to someone in a simple language all the time making sure that the person reading/listening to you is understanding what you are saying the way you want it to be understood. I must admit it is quite a difficult thing to do!

#2: Humour

I am going to try and jog you down your memory lane a little bit and ask you to compare an important and serious lecture to an important but humorous lecture. No doubt on which one you remember and which one brought a smile to your face even now. Research also shows that after having laughed human beings are at their maximum level of focus. (Nah! That’s a bull crap statistic!!). It’s just so much nicer to read something or listen to someone who has included humour in the context. I am not suggesting making something frivolous here for the sake of it, but you will agree that just making someone laugh certainly ensures you of his or her attention (and happily so!)

#3: Directness

Just get to the point and do not beat around the bush. There is no need to give 10 examples to explain something when one is sufficient. Chances are that if someone does not get what you are saying the first time they will never get it! So unless there is a very strong reason for you to repeat something or explain with more than one example, don’t do it!  You are certainly putting off all the smart people and the dumb ones are not going to get it anyways!

So this is my long due but heart felt blog on communication and a few things to make yours effective. There are books that have been written on communication and I am sure a lot of them serve great value but these are just some thoughts inspired from Joel’s book. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!

Please do share your thoughts.