Farzad is the most listened-to person in the division. But it wasn’t always that way. His boss had contacted me saying, “Farzad is a great guy with tremendous substance, but his rambling presentations are driving everyone crazy. Especially my boss!”

Farzad was known as “The guy who talks the most and says the least.”

Farzad showed up for Coaching eager and interested in learning. He said, “I know I’m doing something wrong because everyone multi-tasks when I’m talking, but I have no idea what it is. If you can help me with that, I would love to have everyone listening to me.”

I picked up a good dictionary and showed Farzad the definition of the word Concise, which is: Saying much in few words. Farzad read it out loud to me and nodded. I asked him, “So, what does the word Concise mean?”

It took him five minutes to tell me.

Farzad said [Note to reader: feel free to tune out at any time and go to the next paragraph], “It means that when you’re talking about something that there are so many things that you could say about it and so many interesting things that you could talk about, all of which may be very interesting to you but not necessarily to your audience, and so as you’re talking, because they’re not really interested, you are talking about things that really lose the audience because you’re not focusing in on the important things and so the important things are getting lost and there’s not really a clear message that the audience is getting and they sometimes really don’t know what you’re trying to say, and it can be quite confusing even if you don’t realize it and don’t mean to be confusing, it can happen simply because you’re going on about things that people are not necessarily really interested in …”

His answer was actually longer than that, but I’ll save you having to read it.

I asked him to read the definition of Concise in the dictionary again. Farzad read it out loud again. “Saying much in few words.” And I asked, “What does ‘saying much’ mean?”

Farzad thought about it and then he said, “You’re saying a lot because you’re saying what’s important?”  I said, “Precisely.”

Then I asked Farzad, “What does the word ‘few’ mean?”

Farzad said [Note to reader: skip to next paragraph at any point], “Well it could take an awful lot of words to say what it is that you want to say because these are complex ideas that you are communicating and you are trying to express and you really want the audience to understand what you’re saying with all of the nuances so there are tremendous numbers of detail you can really get into as you’re communicating to an audience because you really want them to understand what it is that you’re trying to convey.”

I told Farzad this was a good point and asked him again, “What does the word ‘few’ mean?”  Farzad looked genuinely puzzled and said, “Does that mean one or two?”

So, we looked up the word few in the dictionary. One definition says “a small number of” and another definition says “used to emphasize how small the number is”.

Farzad said, “Huh! Interesting.”

Then I had Farzad read the definition of Concise again, Saying much in few words.

Farzad got very quiet as he kept looking at the definition. I asked, “What does that mean in your own words?”  He said, “You’re saying a lot, but you’re using very few words.” Farzad looked astonished.

I had Farzad pull out a slide deck that he’s going to be presenting in a couple weeks to investors and analysts. We went through each slide. I had Farzad explain each slide to me using the fewest words possible while still making it impactful. One to three sentences max.

This was really hard for Farzad. Farzad had to think before each slide. It took him a while to shave off the unnecessary detail and pare it down to the essential and impactful. It always does in the beginning. He went slowly. But he did it.

As we practiced, Farzad started being able to explain each slide in one to three sentences that were easy to understand and which highlighted the most important key message of that slide. His explanation of each slide was direct and impressive.  His one-sentence explanations were especially brilliant. His presentation became one that would have his audience on the edge of their seats. Hanging on every word.

Farzad got faster and more skillful as we practiced, until he could do it effortlessly, spontaneously and even when he was put on the spot.

We polished that presentation off with a fabulous main Key Message (easy at this point) and I taught Farzad how to come up with a superb opening sentence, which he did and was very proud of.

At the end of the Coaching session I asked Farzad, “How did this coaching session go for you?” Farzad said, “I feel like a lot of space has opened up. I’ve eliminated everything that’s not necessary and it’s opened up a tremendous amount of space to focus on what’s really important. I feel powerful.”

This is one of many reasons I love coaching. Watching people transform with real coaching, seeing them develop spectacular abilities right in front of me. Transformation is  one of the most amazing events of human experience. To witness it is a pleasure beyond.

When I heard that Farzad is now the most listened to person in the division, I was filled with a great joy that is inexpressible. I know what that means to him.

Farzad deserves to be heard. You deserve to be heard too.

The good news is that making that happen is completely up to you. It’s not luck, it’s not chance, it is simply a choice you make to transform the way you communicate with the world.

Be the cause!