Tell Me the Time, Not How to Build a Clock

December 21, 2009 by Jerry

tell_me_the_time_no_clock

“Brevity is the soul of wit,” said Polonius, the sage royal advisor in Hamlet, in response to the king’s request for his opinion. William Shakespeare had his 17^th Century character use “wit” to mean intelligence rather than its current usage to mean clever humor. But just as the definition of wit has shifted over time, so has the definition of brevity. There are far too many presentations—and even more conversations—that go on and on and on, warranting the impatient accusation, “Tell me the time, not how to build a clock!”

In presentations, nowhere is verbosity more frequently perpetrated than in answers to questions. All too often, presenters introduce new material in their answers or rehash their original material ad nauseam. They fail to understand that the primary purpose of opening the floor to questions is to clarify the content in the presentation. Audiences are less interested in comprehensive and exhaustive responses to their questions than they are in seeing how a presenter handles him or herself in the line of fire.

In a prior blog, you read how New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a billionaire businessman and politician with a reputation for verbosity, found himself in an unexpectedly close race for re-election. As a result, in the homestretch of the campaign, he kept his replies to reporters’ questions very short.

Brevity is even more important in business than in politics. We have become accustomed to—and even reluctantly tolerant of—politicians who go into windbag mode, but we never cut anyone such slack in business; particularly in Q&A. As evidence, let me repeat a passage from the Bloomberg blog that states the case perfectly:

David Bellet, the Founder of Crown Advisors International, one of Wall Street’s most successful
investment firms, often made challenging questions a standard part of his due diligence of
new companies. ‘When I ask questions,’ said David, ‘I don’t really have to have the full answer
because I can’t know the subject as well as the presenter. What I look for is whether the presenter
has thought about the question, been candid, thorough, and direct and how the presenter handles
himself or herself under stress.’

Follow David Bellet’s advice; make your answers to your audience’s questions brief. When someone asks you the time, just tell them the time. In point of fact, make your presentations brief, too. In further point of fact, make your conversations brief. Conversation is a form of communication, only less formal than presentations. The social windbag is as much of a bore as the political windbag.

Leave the clock making to Bulova.

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