In-House Counsel, Litigators

Abbrev's For Idio's (Or, 3 Tips For Effective Communication)

In-house columnist Mark Herrmann offers three lessons about communication.

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First, an example; then, a rant.

Here’s the example: I attended a mediation. The mediator gave each side 20 minutes to make an opening presentation. After one advocate had spoken for 80 — you read that right: 80 — minutes, the mediator suggested that it was time for him to wrap up.

The guy flipped through his notes, said that he still had a lot of material to cover, and then offered: “To speed things up, I’ll just bullet-point my arguments.”

Before the “continue reading” icon, I’ll note the lessons to be learned from this tale that are not the subject of today’s rant. First: If you’re given 20 minutes to speak, speak for 20 minutes. Got that?

Second: If you’re given 20 minutes to speak, you drone on for 80 minutes, and the mediator then suggests that it’s time for you to wrap up, you may speak for about two more sentences. Then, it’s time to sit down. Got that?

Third, and the most valuable lesson — instructive, yet infused with a certain dry wit — . . . .

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I’m getting slimier and slimier with how I induce folks to click through the “continue reading” icon, don’t you think? Four years of writing this column, and I’m finally catching on. Next month, I think I’ll start offering you a free gift if you click through. (Oh, wait! I already tried that!)

Where was I?

Oh, yeah.

Third: The idea of communicating is to — what’s the word I’m searching for here? Oh, yes — communicate. Once you’ve stopped communicating, there’s really no reason for you to continue talking. Or, in other situations, writing. Or, in yet other situations, signing, or miming, or semaphoring.

Once the listener (or reader, or whatever) is no long receiving your message, there’s no reason for you to keep sending it. (Think of it this way: When your spouse falls asleep, you can stop talking.)

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My mediation-idiot had decided that he absolutely had to convey all of his ideas, even if he’d lost the audience an hour earlier, and even if he was about to start talking in a cryptic short-hand that even interested listeners could never have deciphered. So he did: “My next point is that QRB undercut this in paragraph 6 of the expert report. My next point is that the other side has misconstrued the Namibian law issue. My next point is that the Raskolnikov text does not support the proposition they’ve cited it for. . . . ”

The only reason to speak (apart from a filibuster, I suppose) is to communicate. If no one can understand what you’re saying, then don’t bother saying it.

Now that I’ve typed those words, I realize that I made the same point roughly a year ago in the context of CLE programs, where speakers routinely realize that they have more slides than time remaining and begin to rant breathlessly and incoherently to try to “cover” all of their remaining material in two minutes. That’s a bad idea in the context of CLE programs; it’s a bad idea in the context of mediations. Let me go out on a limb here: That’s a bad idea in any context whatsoever.

And my point isn’t limited to oral communications. Here’s the second example that prompted today’s rant.

I recently received a draft PowerPoint slide that was to be used to guide a discussion at an upcoming meeting. I read the slide; I didn’t understand a word of it. I called the author to ask what he was driving at. He explained to me that he had a lot of material that he wanted to discuss orally, but he’d be limited to a single slide as his part of the presentation. He had thus chosen to abbreviate words, use acronyms, delete lines, and so forth, so that he could fit all the material on a single slide.

DDT,YM!

(That is: “Don’t Do This, You Moron!”)

The idea of written communication is to — what are the words I’m looking for here? Oh, yes — communicate in writing. Once you’ve stopped communicating, put down your quill. (I thought for a minute about writing “pen” there, but even that seems so hopelessly old-fashioned.) If you must make only a few points and eliminate the rest, that’s okay. We do it all the time in briefs that are constrained by word (or page) limits. We pick the best arguments and don’t bother with the rest. That’s how you persuade people.

I understand that some of you think I’m wrong: “In a trial court brief, I must protect the record. So I’m duty-bound to include every conceivable argument, even if that means jamming six points into an incoherent footnote on the last page.”

Unh-uh. If your argument is strong, make it — coherently and intelligently, in a way that will persuade readers. If your argument is so frivolous that it merits only an incoherent sentence fragment in a footnote, then don’t bother with it. That argument will not be any stronger on appeal, so there’s no reason to preserve the issue.

If you’re trying to communicate, communicate.

When you’ve stopped communicating, stop talking.

TE.

Mark Herrmann is the Chief Counsel – Litigation and Global Chief Compliance Officer at Aon, the world’s leading provider of risk management services, insurance and reinsurance brokerage, and human capital and management consulting. He is the author of The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law and Inside Straight: Advice About Lawyering, In-House And Out, That Only The Internet Could Provide (affiliate links). You can reach him by email at inhouse@abovethelaw.com.

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