IT people have a reputation for speaking their own language, full of acronyms, buzz words and technical terms. While this may streamline conversations with people in the IT community, for everyone else the language dilutes the message.

I once had a brilliant technical architect who did a great job of identifying the right technologies to solve business issues. However, his presentations where so technical that business sponsors didn’t follow them, and his recommendations lost support. I coached him on the need to simplify what he presented. We agreed he would present his finding on two slides. Slide one would cover the solutions he evaluated and slide two would cover who he recommended and why. The whys needed to be in business terms. (He was allowed unlimited backup of slides in case questions arose.) This forced him to spend time clarifying his message. The result was improved support for his recommendations, with the side benefits of shorting his meetings from 60 minutes to 10.

Like my colleague I’ve often struggled with getting my message across by providing too much detail. When I do that my message gets lost among those details. With coaching I’ve developed my own KISS or Keep it Simple Stupid principals.

• Identify what’s in the message the audience cares about, and only talk about that.
• Explain the logic behind decisions the audience cares about.
• Use terms that someone from outside my organization and function will understand.
• If compelled to use more advanced terms define them for the audience.
• It’s interaction with the audience that builds commitment, not the brilliance of my argument.

I’ve found two results from following these principles. First it takes a lot more effort to create a simple presentation. Second, people remember and act on more of what I said the fewer words I say it with.