Welcome to the APM podcast, brought to you by the
Association for Project Management, the childhood body
for the project profession. My name is Emma DaVita, and I'm
the editor of Projects, APM's quarterly journal and your host.
When we first started recording our podcasts in 2020, we used it
as a way to document the work project professionals on the
frontline of the COVID pandemic were doing, from vaccine hunters
and HMRC top bosses leading the furlough projects to
professionals helping to pivot businesses online to keep
everything going. We're celebrating the 100th APM
podcast with a special guest this episode, so let me
introduce you to Ross Atkins, the BBC's News Analysis Editor,
who has presented and reported on some of the biggest stories
around the world for 20 years. He's also the creator of the
critically acclaimed Ross Atkins On Video series, where he
explains complex stories in a truly masterful way, from the
causes of the COVID pandemic to the war in Ukraine.
His new book, The Art of Explanation, is out now in
paperback, so we thought you'd love to hear from Ross himself
about how to get the often difficult art of explaining
right. We don't just mean explaining
the insurance and outs of a project to your team or
stakeholders, but how to communicate everything that
matters to you with both clarity and confidence so that you can
get what you set out to achieve. Ross has spent his career honing
his communication skills, so let's find out about his
foolproof system for getting explanations right and some
other top tips on effective communication.
Thanks Ross for your time today for the APM podcast.
Really appreciate it. Pleasure.
Let's dive straight in. I wanted to say congratulate you
on your book and and the videos you make.
Why do you think there's such an appetite for not only the
explainer videos, but also the advice you give on how to
explain and communicate well? Well, thank you very much indeed
for for inviting me and thanks for your kind words.
I think my starting point with all of this is that we are all,
in our different ways, being completely overwhelmed by
information. Regardless of what line of work
you do or what stage of life you're at, the chances are that
there's far too much information coming at you that you can
possibly consume. But that doesn't mean that we
don't want information. We do really want to need
useful, accessible information both for our working lives and
outside of our working lives. So I do think that anyone who is
offering to help us find the information we want as easily as
possible is likely to to find that what they're offering is
popular. And so in the case of our
explainer videos, what we're trying to do is there's still an
awful lot of information about a story or issue and put it into a
form where if you give us relatively short period of time
in a few minutes, in return, we hope will give you not just a
lot of useful information, but we'll also explain how that
information fits together. So that's what we're doing.
But I think it plays into a broader desire for all of us to
have information given to us in a way that is easier to consume
because frankly, we're spending a huge amount of our lives
processing and working through this vast amount of information
coming towards us. And if any source of
information, whether it's a person or an organisation, makes
that information easy to access and as relevant to us as
possible and as useful as possible, then we're likely to
think well towards that person or organisation because they're
saving US time. They're making the task of
finding the information we need easier.
And I hope that in our way, our explainer videos and the book
that I've written on this kind of plays into that because it
emphasises that good communication benefits the
person passing on the information because we give that
information the best chance of reaching the people we hope it
will reach. But it also works for the people
receiving information because they get the things that they
would like to know in as easier form to consume as possible.
Thanks, Ross. I, I definitely picked up on
that in your book. And one of the things that
surprised me was that there is an appetite for longer forms of
explanation as well, because there was something you raised
in the book where you feel as though people just have very
short attention spans now, you know, social media X whatever,
but actually there's a proven audience for people listening to
longer things or sticking in there if the explanation is
good. Is that something you that
surprised you too? I think there's a lot of
evidence around that, that both of these things can be true.
There are definitely environments in which we all
want information being offered to us or content being offered
to us in very short form, whether that might be a TikTok
video or, you know, posts on Instagram or X or other social
media that in some circumstances is what we're after.
Or we might be getting a, an update from work in an e-mail.
We don't want 1000 words. We'd much prefer to get a really
short e-mail with some bullet points that helps us understand
the point of that e-mail. So there are lots of
circumstances in which short does work for us.
But at the same time as that, there is also lots of evidence
that when people want detail, it's given to them in a way
that's engaging, that's easy to consume, that's easy to
understand, that they will spend time on it because detail is
relevant to them and interesting to them.
So we don't have to choose between these two things.
I think there are occasions when we want content and information
in really short form, but equally there are other times
when we will spend much more time on a subject.
If, and it's a big if, if the information is being given to us
in a way that feels relevant, accessible, helpful and all of
these things which I'm trying to do both with the book I've
written and with the videos I do for the BBC.
OK. I can't wait to dissect your
kind of system a bit later on, but I wanted to raise the point
for our listeners because our listeners are project
professionals ranging from apprentices up to very senior
level. Because your book and the advice
you give is not just about how to give a specific explanation,
it's about how to communicate clearly in many different
circumstances. So for project professionals,
there is a a lot of explanation to not only your team members
around the vision of a project, what needs to get done, but also
to stakeholders outside the project.
So communities who might not necessarily agree with what
you're doing, who have a very different perspective.
So I wondered if you could give us an idea of like the benefits
of improving our explanation skills not only inside of work,
but outside of work as well. Because there are clear benefits
for, you know, as an individual in everyday life as well.
Well, let's take the example of a, of a big project, the example
that you've just given in my work as a journalist, if I'm
trying to get an idea off the ground or a story commissioned,
well, I might need to interact with a number of people within
the BBC. It might be the producers who
I'm making the idea with or the the piece of content with.
It might be the editors who are going to Commission it.
There might be the executives above those editors if the idea
is a longer term plan. And then as well as that, of
course, when we're making the content, when we're developing
the stories, we need to think about which audiences we're
hoping to reach and which different types of BBC output,
digital radio, television, we might use in order to deliver
that piece of journalism. And so you're having lots and
lots of interactions with people who all need different things
from you. And in the same way, I would
imagine that that it is good project management because
again, you're dealing with lots of colleagues, lots of people
outside your organisation and you're having to make different
calculations. And my, my experience is that
the more that you can tailor what you're saying to the
particular people you're trying to reach, the more likely they
are to engage with what you're offering them.
Because in my experience as ATV presenter and reporter, if I can
make what I'm saying on the news feel relevant to a person
watching or listening or reading, they're much more
likely to consume that piece of news because they feel a
connection between their lives and what I'm telling them.
And similarly, if you're trying to communicate when you're
overseeing a big project, if you're pushing a lot of
information towards someone and they're thinking, I don't know
if this information is really particularly relevant to me or
the piece of information that is relevant is surrounded by a lot
of other information that isn't. There are lots of things that
can come with that that won't help you.
The person you're trying to communicate with might think,
well, all of this stuff doesn't look like it's for me, so they
won't engage with any of it. They might slightly resent the
fact that they're having to work hard to find the information
that's right for them amongst all of this other information
that's not. And you may send a broader
message that you're not necessarily making the effort
that you could to give them the information that's most
important to them. Or if you flip that round and be
more positive about this, if you can be really clear what
information the different stakeholders, the different
colleagues need to know and you can give it to them in a highly
accessible way and highly comprehensible way.
Well, they're going to notice that you're making that effort
and they're much more likely to consume it and then much more
likely to engage with it. And so when I'm thinking about
all of the different people I might need to communicate with
on one idea or another, I always stop and think, what would this
person like to know from me? Let's see it from their side.
What are the questions or the doubts or the pieces of
information that they would like from me?
And if I can provide them with that, not a guarantee that
they're going to consume what Ioffer them, it's not a
guarantee they're going to agree with me.
But I am giving myself a good chance of giving them a lot of
information that feels relevant to them.
And so I've worked on big projects over the years in
different forms. I always try and think, even if
I'm dealing with 10/15/20 different people with different
interests in the project stopping and thinking, what do
each of those individuals want to know from me?
What would it be helpful for them to know?
And if I can then answer those questions, there's a good chance
that they're going to feel what I'm offering is relevant.
And if they feel it's relevant, they're much more likely to
engage with it. Oh, thanks Ross.
Something that strikes me is the amount of preparation and time
you must put in that you're that comes through from your advice
as well to people. It's spending that time ahead to
the really put yourself in other people's shoes, I guess.
Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, I, when I was before the
book came out, I showed a proof of it to someone I know who's
the CEO of a, of a big organisation.
And he was clicking through it and he said, Ross says this
looks like the case for preparation.
He said, waving the book at me. And, and of course, he was quite
right. The book is very much me saying
it's worth preparing. And there's a, there's a phrase
that my wife used one day when we were chatting in the kitchen
and I was writing the book and, you know, not for the first
time. And she was having to listen to
me talk about it. And she said, what you're
describing is the initial investment.
And I said, what do you mean? That's an interesting phrase.
And she said you're making the case to invest time in how you
communicate for all the benefits that follow.
And so you look quite right to observe that I am making that
case that when we put aside time to think about how we
communicate to all of the different people we want to
reach, there are so many benefits that follow.
I would argue that that time is a worthy investment.
Yeah, it is. So that's the key point to come
across. The other thing I wanted to ask
you about, which kind of ties into what you're saying about
the relevant information to give to people, but also talk, talk
to me about the language you should use because I come from a
broad business kind of genders and backgrounds and come into
project management. There is a lot of jargon.
Well, I mean, to be honest, in any sector of business as
business speak, which can trick people into thinking that they
come across as expert and sometimes that's deliberate.
What do you think about jargon, business speaking, the type of
language you use for effective communication and explanation?
I think let's split this into two.
We all in our workplaces have jargon that we use to explain
something that everyone understands.
So I'll give you one example. In the BBC newsroom, especially
within TV news, we would call a clip of someone talking assault.
And that's an acronym. It stands for Sound on tape.
It's an acronym that reaches many years back and we just call
clips stop. So if I was to work with a
producer on a video and one of us might say I think we've got
too many shots in this video, that's some jargon.
But actually everyone within the conversation knows exactly what
it means. And so we carry on working in.
No harm done when you get into problems is well, there are two
areas. 1 is when you start using that jargon, but actually not
everyone in the in the conversation knows it.
So you're really alienating a bunch of people by using
something that that some of the people in the conversation won't
know what you mean. And that is obviously not the
right thing to do. And so if I was in a broader
conversation with people about a video and we were short of
clips, I would say, I think we've got too many clips in this
video or I think we need more clips in this video.
So I would say clip rather than sought because I would
understand that the, the group of people I was talking to
wouldn't necessarily know the acronym.
So those are calculations we can make and we should definitely
understand the cost of using words and phrases and concepts
that people, some people who we're communicating with don't
understand. They'll simply conclude what
this isn't for me and start tuning out.
It's not, it's not something we want to be doing.
But there's a second element to this, which is when we use
complex language, phrase complex words, phrases and so on, simply
instead of using simpler language to explain it.
Sometimes this can feel performative.
I'm sure some people listening can think of times when they've
felt that colleagues are perhaps kind of performing by using
complex phrases and words. I don't think this is ever
needed. And one of the most powerful
things that I keep in mind when I'm communicating, whether with
colleagues, whether you know, on the TV or making a video or
whatever circumstances, I simply ask myself, here's what I'm
saying in the simplest form that it can be.
And that doesn't mean I'm dumbing down or discarding
important information. It just means once I've decided
what it is that I think it's important to say, can I get that
into its simplest form? And that means replacing complex
words and phrases with things that are simply easier to
understand. Because there is a really, in my
mind, a straightforward equation, which is that the
simpler you make your language, the easier it is to understand
and the easier it is for people to act on.
And when you look at it in those terms, you always want to be
thinking about getting your meaning into the simplest form
that it can be. We're APM, the only chartered
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visiting apm.org.uk. Because when projects succeed,
society benefits. I'm thinking about the kind of
information project professionals need to pass on.
And often it will be verbally so in a project team meeting to get
people motivated or to stakeholders.
And you can imagine that kind of town hall situation where people
might be opposing what you do. Have you got any advice or top
tips and verbally delivering information and also dealing
with difficult comments or feedback or questions that
people ask? Well, I think in the case of if
you're going into a meeting, whatever the circumstance where
you're likely to be asked questions that could be
challenging or difficult to answer.
I mean, that's something that all of us experience in the
workplace, not in a bad way. It's just quite correct that in
lots of circumstances our ideas and our plans are challenged and
discussed. That's completely normal.
The thing that I try and do and you and learn this from doing
interviews in the news is it's good to try and anticipate what
you think you're going to be asked.
So if I'm, if I'm being interviewed myself, such as in
this situation, I'll definitely stop and think in advance what
are the questions I'm likely to be asked.
And in fact, when I was preparing for this book to come
out, I wrote down all the different questions I thought
that could come up in media interviews and then work through
how I'd like to answer them. So you can anticipate some of
the things that would, that might, that might come up.
I was involved in starting a diversity project at the BBC
called 5050. And in the early days when we
were explaining the idea to lots of different teams, we made sure
that we tried to anticipate the perfectly valid concerns and
questions colleagues might have about our plans and then think
about how we were going to answer them.
And if I'm going on the TV to report on a story, I would
think, well, what are the most likely questions the presenters
I'm going to be speaking to are going to ask me?
And I will definitely say out loud how I think I'm going to
answer them. And my experience is that the
first time I say it is very rarely as good as I would like
it to be, but the second or third time I start to improve
the precision and efficiency and clarity with which I'm speaking.
So going into any environment where you're going to be facing
a range of questions, whether supportive or challenging, it's
always worth simply stopping and thinking what are those
questions most likely to be? How would I like to answer them?
Practise how you answer them, review how your practise is
going and improve them and keep practising until by the time
you're in those situations, both the question and how you're
answering, it will feel much more familiar and there's a
greater chance you'll speak with, with, with, with clarity
in that moment. So that would be, that would be
one thing in terms of how, how to deal with people who are
perhaps getting angry with you or perhaps challenging you in a
way that might make you, that might be, might put you in a
difficult position. Well, I used to present a phone
in on BBC World Service for a number of years.
And of course, most of the, the vast majority of the callers
were fantastic and informative and you know, an absolute
pleasure to speak to. But from time to time you would
get someone who was was getting irate with you.
And I'm not an expert in how to manage some of the situations
project managers would would be in.
But in the case of in case of doing phone insurance, one of
the things I would often do would be to say, I want to
understand your perspective on this.
And if you're shouting at me, it's becoming hard to understand
that. And that was, that was a sincere
point because I genuinely would want to understand what that
particular caller was saying. And I would try and make the
case that if anger levels were getting to a certain level,
their understanding, their perspective was becoming harder.
And that was, that was sometimes effective because at the heart
of me presenting that programme, I was genuinely interested in
the perspective of every person who phoned that programme.
And I think being interested in people who don't agree with you
is really important. So if I'm in a meeting, whether
it's the BBC or otherwise, and people are not agreeing with a
plan or a suggestion of mine, I'm genuinely interested to
understand why I'm not fed up with them or cross with them.
I'm I'm genuinely keen to understand why.
And I think if you can come from that perspective, that can help.
Thanks. Ross comes down to practising
and preparation and a point that I wanted to raise from the book
that you make is around context and that as a journalist, you
read around the subjects as much as you can and the the time that
you have. But you don't necessarily have
to bring that into whatever it is you're reporting on or
writing or presenting on. But it gives you the confidence
to feel as though you know that subjects inside out.
Is that something that would apply to business situations?
I'm thinking for project teams as well.
I think nothing is happening in isolation where there is a new
story that I'm covering or whether it's a project that
people listening to this podcast might be working on, that
project will be affected by lots of different factors all around
it. Equally, when I'm covering an
event in the news, that events relevance and consequence is
affected of course by the context in which the event has
happened. And I think often we jettison
context in exchange for simply the the core information on a
particular event or situation. And I would argue we need to do
both. We need to say this is the
situation we're in and here are the facts of the matter.
But the reason this matters is, and that's a phrase I use a lot.
The reason this matters is, and that's really a linking phrase
that helps you think about the context.
So let's take an example of a project that was supposed to be
finished by the end of September, but for whatever
reason, it's got to be finished by the end of August, which is
going to cause a whole lot of disruption.
When you were communicating that if you just went I'm, you know,
afraid this is going to be finished by the end of August,
people might quite reasonably be thinking, well, hold on, I mean,
that's not realistic why you're doing this.
This is really annoying. But if you said, well, actually
this has got to be finished a month early and the reasons are
this and this and this, and that's why we have to make this
difficult decision. By providing the context in the
decision, you're much more likely to for people to be
understanding of the decision that's being taken.
It's not a guarantee, but it's going to help.
And so the reason this has happened is the reason this
matters is these phrases and completing them really help us
focus on providing the necessary context for people to be able to
judge what we're telling them. And if you prioritise context,
you give yourself the best chance of making the case to
whoever you're speaking to that what you're telling them
matters, or what you're telling them has to be done for a
variety of reasons, or whatever the example might be.
But without that context, they can't really judge what you're
telling them very well. And if they can't judge what
you're telling them, quite reasonably, they might not
understand your perspective as much as you would like them to.
That makes sense. It also ties in with this idea
of storytelling. So kind of the story as a
project where you are. So you you treat people with
with respect, I guess to say, you know, this is where we are,
This is why it's happened. And you fill them in into why
things need to change. That's great.
I, I want to ask you now about the practical sides of
explaining. And in your book you outline the
principles behind it and also the system you go through to
provide the most efficient, clearest explanation you can.
Could you give our listeners some tips or a very brief
overview of how to approach explanation?
What are the kind of do's and don'ts?
So in the book I outline A7 step process to explanation.
And don't worry, I won't go through it in huge detail now,
otherwise this podcast might be quite long, but I can certainly
run you through the basic principles of it.
And essentially the way I see communication and explanation is
that you can't build a house by doing the roof first.
You've got to put the foundations in before you do
anything else. And for me, communication and
explanation is a series of steps, each of which gives you a
better chance of doing the next one well.
And the end outcome, of course, is hopefully us identifying the
information we want to pass on and then passing it on to the
people we hope to reach in the circumstances that we know
they're going to receive it, because we don't communicate in
a vacuum. And so the first of my seven
steps is called the set up. And this is really where we just
pause and ask ourselves, what's the purpose of this
communication? What's the information we want
to pass on? Who are the people we're trying
to pass it on to? How do they like to receive
information? In what circumstances will they
be receiving this particular piece of information?
And sometimes if you're going into a meeting, that assessment
can take 30 seconds. It doesn't have to take ages.
For bigger bits of work, it takes a little longer.
But if you can be really clear on what you're trying to
achieve, who it's for, what information you want them to
receive, the best way of giving them that information, you're
going to make much smarter decisions as the process goes
along. So that's step one.
And then once I've done that, Step 2 is to gather what I think
is the most relevant information.
Step 3 is to distil it, because one of the best things we can do
is once we've thought about what we want to say, is make sure we
get each piece of information we want to pass on.
In the simplest form it can be. It'll both save you time when
you're communicating and make it easier to take in.
So Step 3 is distillation. Step 4, that's organising the
information. Once I've worked out what I want
to pass on, I want to start giving it some structure so that
the information makes sense when interconnecting with its with
itself. And then the 5th part of the
process would be to link that information.
Once I've given a structure I practise.
How can I talk through this? So if I was wanting to say this
project is going to be finishing at the end of August, not the
end of September. I might be saying well the
project is finishing at the end of August. 3 things underpin
this decision. The 1st is this, the second is
that, the third is the other. And if you've got questions
about what happens if it goes over late, well I can tell you
this will be the consequence and that will be the consequence.
So I would practise being able to talk through the structure of
the information so I'm fluent and confident and precise.
And if it's written, I would go back over it a few times.
If it's spoken, I would practise it.
Which leads me to the last two parts of the the seven step
process. Step 6 is what I call the
tightening process, which is when we've put together
everything we want to pass on, it's always worth going back
over it as many times as you can, frankly, and thinking, does
this all need to be here? Is this all as clear as it can
be? And in my experience, you'll
always find ways of improving it, of tightening it and making
it more precise. And once you're in that
position, of course you're in a great situation.
You thought about what you want to do, you've gathered the
information, you've distilled it, you've organised it, you've
linked it, you've tightened what you've got.
And then my last step is rehearse.
Practise it. The more you say things out
loud, the more comfortable you're going to be.
And I see this all the time when I'm broadcasting.
Sometimes I'll be down in Downing St on a big political
story and you'll see people like reporters like me wandering up
and down Downing St talking to themselves.
And what they're doing is practising rehearsing the
phrases they want to use. This doesn't mean, I should add,
you're learning things by Rd. You're not learning it word for
word. You're simply practising
handling the information. Because that means that when
you're doing it, when it really matters, it'll be familiar,
you'll be more comfortable with it and you're likely to speak
with more precision. So those seven steps help me go
from first of all thinking what is it I'm exactly trying to do
here all the way through to doing it.
That's fantastic. And I'm assuming as well that
once you've had some time using the seven step process that it
almost comes automatically. Yes, I mean, I think there are,
there are lots of times when these things become automatic.
You know, I'll give you a, you know, very short example.
If I was called in as soon as I finished talking to you.
Now, if I was called into a meeting at work at short notice
and I knew who was going to be in the meeting and roughly what
it was about, I would quickly make 3 columns which would be
what information do I want to make sure I pass on?
What information would I like to get from the people I'm meeting
and what are the things that I hope will happen next And that
can take that can take 30 seconds.
So sometimes you could, you're right, you can do it on
instinct. However, I'm at the moment, you
know, as I'm speaking to you, I'm in the process of preparing
for a reasonably high profile speech.
I've got to give in a few weeks time and I am going through the
seven steps as written in the book pretty methodically.
And so there are times when I do follow it, you know, stage step
by step by step. There'll be other times when of
course, as you get used to it and you become, it becomes
habitual. You can do it on instinct in
part. But in my experience, actually
being methodical and going through it, even if it just
takes 5 minutes, pays you back because you're just double
checking that you're being as clear and as purposeful as you
want to be. Thanks, Ross.
If there's one piece of advice that you'd like listeners to
take away from our podcast, what would that be?
It would be to see communication and explanation as being really
important because often they're seen as being secondary skills
besides the other things which all of us are expert in in our
working lives. And for me, my ability to
communicate is core to my journalism and core to my work
as a broadcaster, as core as other disciplines that are
required of journalists and of broadcasters.
And sometimes I think that communication and how we
communicate is something that we largely do on instinct and
perhaps don't consciously think about as much as we do other
skills in our working life. So the big one for me, before
you get into what do you do and how do you do it, is simply to
see it as being really important.
OK, thanks Ross. What are the proudest things
you've worked on at the BBC? Oh goodness.
Well, I've been lucky enough to do, you know, a range of, you
know, a range of things at the BBC which I'm incredibly proud
to have done with. With along with many brilliant
colleagues, we created ATV format called Outside Source,
which ran for almost 10 years on BBC World News TV and BBC News
Channel in the UK. We're very, very, very proud of
that. I mentioned the Diversity
Project 5050, which some of us started in the BBC Newsroom.
I'm very proud of how that's grown to be a really very big
project. And we're proud of our explainer
videos as well, which have become, you know, way more
popular than I think we ever imagined they could have done
when we were starting them. And you know, I'm sure there are
other things too. And of course, all of these
ideas are that a combination of many different people's work.
But there's no doubt that the ability to talk about ideas,
whether it's me talking about it or colleagues talking about it,
if you can talk about what you're trying to create, you're
much more likely that you will be able to create it.
And if I sound kind of very committed to this, well, of
course I am, because I've done a book on it and, and care deeply
about it. But really communication and how
you approach it can be the difference between something
happening and not happening. And when you look at it in those
terms, then it becomes an absolute priority.
But it leads me to ask you what you enjoy about your work,
particularly around the whole area of explaining and
communication. Well, I've always been very
interested in the news as I, you know, I can remember all the way
back to just starting secondary school and being an avid
consumer of the news. So I, you know, if you're still
feels I've been at the BBC an awfully long time, but it still
feels like an enormous privilege to walk in the door everyday and
sit down in, in the BBC newsroom.
And I never, never take that for granted.
I think there's a huge privilege in being given a role in an
organisation like the BBC to help all of our different
audiences, listeners, readers, viewers understand the world
that they live in. That's a hugely privileged role
to to perform. And my small part in that feels
something that I absolutely relished doing because I know as
a consumer that when the news works for me, it's helping me
understand my world. It's helping me understand an
event or an issue. And when done well, there's a
huge value to that. And I remain, you know,
passionate about the importance of journalism in providing that.
And then I think as a presenter, one of the great privileges is
that you get to ask questions often of people who are in power
or right in the middle of an important story.
And being the person who on behalf of the audience is
actually putting the questions to those people is always a
privilege. And I never take it for granted.
And I've been lucky enough to present for the region of 20
years now, but I never ever tyre of the privilege position that
comes from sitting in a studio or, you know, if you're
reporting, you know, on a particular story and you, you
get to speak to the person in the middle of it.
And this is a person often that your audiences will want to hear
from. And you're lucky enough to be
the one answer asking the questions.
And that, you know, that too, is a huge privilege and, and one
that still feels as, as, as important and as, as something
that I'm deeply committed to as it as it was when I started
doing it 20 years ago. Is there anything else you
wanted to add? Any other last bits of advice
you'd pass on to project professionals?
Well, I think that the thing that I feel very strongly is
I've already said that communication really matters.
And it's worth taking time to think about how you communicate
both in the smaller moments, such as in a quick meeting or an
e-mail, up to the bigger moments where you're having to present a
large plan or make the case to a large group of people that
something should happen. It's just worth taking the time
over it. The second thing I would say is
that, you know, if you open up my book, of course, it's however
many pages long, 300 or more pages long, full of advice.
And it could be easy to pick this up and think, goodness,
this is an awful lot to take on. But what I would say is that
there are lots of things that we can.
You don't have to do a six month training course to improve how
you communicate. It's possible to sit down and
go, OK, what one thing could I do differently that I think will
improve how I managed to get across the information I'm
trying to communicate? There are things that we can
adjust very quickly and very simply, and they can make a
large difference. So, for example, if you send
lots of emails, are your emails as short and as easy to consume
as possible? If they aren't, perhaps there
are ways that you can experiment with the formatting or the
writing which makes them easier to consume.
That might just be one thing you could try.
Or if you're going into a meeting tomorrow, could you try
using my three lists of what information do I want to pass
on? What information do I want from
the people in the meeting? What actions do I hope will
agree by the end of the meeting? You can just experiment with
small adjustments in how you're communicating.
And that can be something you can take on tomorrow.
And if it goes well, you can add to it and become more and more
adventurous. But don't feel it's all or
nothing. This isn't either you spend
months completely reimagining how you communicate or nothing
at all. I hope what comes across in the
book is there are lots of small things that we can do to
incrementally improve how we communicate.
And in my experience, quite quickly you will feel the
difference in how people are responding to you and and how
well people are understanding what you're trying to pass on to
them. And that, of course, is a good
feeling. Ross and really wise, wise,
thanks so much for your time. I know you're clearly in a very
busy kind of new cycle at the moment, so it's been a pleasure
to talk to you. Wish you the best luck with the
book and everything else you're working on.
Thank you very much for having me, really appreciate it.
Thanks again to Ross for joining us and to you for listening to
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