Could you do a 20 second summary? On the spot? It’s a good skill.
Remember Mark Twain’s quote: “I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead“ – meaning that writing concisely needs more effort and time than writing at length. Summarising is a vital skill in business, as well as in life.
A cold-caller recently rang me and said, “Can I take up 30 seconds of your time?” I said, “Sure.” He waffled on for a bit, about NHS waiting lists, didn’t get to the point, and then stopped. I said, “Is that the end of the 30 seconds?” (OK, I was a bit cranky). He then asked, “Would you like to purchase health insurance?” I replied, “Well, I already have health insurance, so no. But thanks for calling!” Of course, he should have checked FIRST THING whether I had health insurance. But he’s learned that now.
Right, so brevity is a skill. And also managing people’s expectations – ie do I have a 5 minute explanation or a 15 second explanation? (with more I can add, if they ask for further clarification).
Another trick I use, when delivering any kind of training, is that I tell people how long the video clips are, that I use to illustrate points. I say, “Let’s watch a 38 second video now, let’s watch a 4’30” video now” etc. A delegate asked me, “Why do you tell us how long the clips are? I love it, by the way.”
I explained, “This is to manage people’s expectations. Do they need to concentrate for 20 seconds or 5 minutes? For 5 minutes, they might lose attention for the first 2 minutes and glance at their emails. For 20 seconds they have to PAY ATTENTION the whole way through, otherwise they’ll miss it.” This is particularly helpful, a neuro-divergent participant told me, for people with ADHD, so they can manage their attention span and have a structure to the session. For someone with ADHD – who finds it hard to enter into prolonged social interaction, without a defined end or breaks – it’s better to have (a) a structure to the day, so they know when the breaks are coming and (b) advance notice of what’s happening, and how long for.
Related to this topic is ‘time estimation’. What I mean by this is: when people ask, ‘How long will this take?’ it’s essential to develop a fairly accurate way of estimating the time. Is it 1 minute, 20 minutes or 2 hours? When people say, ‘Hold on for 1 second,’ what they mean is 3 minutes, or another time frame. If you need 3 minutes, say so.
I recently saw a colleague ask the whole team to stay ‘two minutes’ late, after a long shift, to do something extra for him (I wasn’t needed, so I retired to my room). Bear in mind it was 0330am by this time, and we had been working since 9am. FORTY MINUTES later I heard everyone else coming up the stairs and going to their rooms (we were in a hotel). So it wasn’t TWO minutes, it was FORTY. You must develop a realistic idea of how long different tasks will take.
In this same vein, I often ask my husband if I can quickly tell him something, or grumble about something which he has heard before, but I MANAGE HIS EXPECTATIONS by saying, ‘This will take 20 seconds’, or 1 minute’ or whatever. So…
My point is:
…and this is my point: you will do better at work if you develop the skill of ‘time estimation’ – managing colleagues’ expections of how long something will take, to explain, execute or complete. And if in doubt, add on a few minutes. Ditto when you are on the road and need to let people know when you’ll arrive. They’re waiting for you – let them get on with another task if you’re going to be ages.
