“How to Speak” : Notes from MIT Professor’s talk on Effective Communication
Introduction
These are some of my notes from an MIT talk on YouTube called “How to Speak” by Professor Patrick Winston.
The purpose of the talk is to expose the audience’s ideas, that can help improve their communication. The idea is for you to use this information to develop your own communication style.
3 factors that determine your Success in life
“Your success in life will be determined largely by your ability to speak , your ability to write and the quality of your ideas. In that order” — Patrick Winston
My first thought when i heard this was, does this mean the quality of what you are saying isn’t as important as knowing how to say something well? Is your ability to talk and write really more important than the quality of your ideas? 🤔. I thought about this after hearing the quote above and I remembered my time back in school and work. There were some instances of people who are saying nothing substantial that were able to get people to buy into their ideas because they were able to say it in a way that “makes sense”. So maybe there’s some truth to the idea that knowing how to communicate well is more important than the quality of the ideas you’re communicating.
Factors that affect the quality of your communication ( speaking and writing)
- How much knowledge you have ( In this case is it knowledge about how to communicate well or subject matter knowledge? I’m not so sure)
- How much you practice with that knowledge. ( In this case is it about 1 - practicing communicating the subject matter knowledge you have eg practicing talking or writing about petting a cat or 2 — practicing with the subject matter knowledge, like experience eg practicing petting cat or 3 — practicing communicating eg practicing giving a talk
- Inherent talent [ He emphasized that talent plays s small role, knowledge and practice are more important]
Tips on communication
1. Start with a Promise
Tell people what they are going to know at the end of listening to you. What will they know at the end that they didn’t know before they started listening to you. What’s the reason for being here.
2. Cycle round a topic or subject.
It’s okay to repeat a point to cycle around a topic. You can make a point 3 times at different points in a presentation because at any given point there’s a chance someone has zoned out and is not paying full attention to what you are saying. Cycling around a topic increases the chance that more people in the audience get the point even though they weren’t paying attention 100% of the time. If they missed what you said the first time, they can get it the next time you say it.
3. Building a fence around your idea
If you are sharing a new idea, you should clearly distinguish it from other people’s ideas. This is important so that your idea is not confused with other people’s Ideas. In practice this may look like stating differences between your idea and other ideas it might be confused with.
4. Verbal Punctuation
This announces to people that this may be a point they would like to pay attention to. You can do this with an outline, by numbering your point, by reminding people where we currently are with reference to the outline. Eg we’ve covered 4 points so far, we’re moving to the next section focused on xyz. This helps people falling off “get back on the bus”. This is to help the audience that has a divided attention.
5. Ask a question
This helps wake people up. Then wait 7 seconds for an answer. The question shouldn’t be too easy and too difficult.
6. Props
You can use props in your communication to capture attention and make understanding easier. It also keeps the audience engaged. Sometimes the audience remembers the props the most. I guess when writing you can use pictures, analogies and stories as props.
7. How to be inspiring
One way to be inspiring is to show passion for what you’re talking about.
8. Situation
Situating your talk is about proving context for what you are talking about and why it important.
9. Practice
Practice with people who don’t know what you’re talking about to see if they understand what you are saying. If they do then you are doing a good job.
10. Pick a good time
If you have control of the time the talk happens, choose a good time. A time that people will most likely not be tired.
11. Picking a good Location
What is a good location ?
- A reasonably populated location— more than half full. If you have a small crowd , choose a small place. This helps to boost Morale of the speaker and the audience. It should look packed from an outsiders perspective. E.g if you have an audience of 50 and you put them in a stadium, the event will look like a flop. If you have them in a small space then it looks better and more encouraging.
- The space should be well lit, to reduce sleepiness.
- Visit the place ahead of time so that there are no surprises to you as a the speaker.
12. Slides ( Verbal Presentation)
The goal here is to encourage the audience to listen to you and not have their attention glued to the slides.
- Get rid of the title. Say the title out loud
- When the slide has a lot of information on it they don’t pay attention to the speaker anymore
- When slides are too wordy the audience may be fixed on reading the slides instead of listening to you. You can include something wordy if it’s absolutely necessary in your opinion. Just make sure to pause to give the audience time to read.
13. How to teach people how to think
Stories play a big role in thinking and understanding the world.
To teach people how to think you need to provide them with the following
- Stories they need to know about the subject
- The questions they need to ask about those stories
- Mechanisms for analysing those stories
- Ways of putting stories together
- Ways of evaluating how reliable a story is
14. Job Talks
I’m not sure what a job talk is. I think it’s something related to accademia. Apparently in a job talk you have about 5 minutes to demonstrate you have a vision and you have some experience.
Vision was explained here as - a problem someone cares about and something new in your approach
How to show that you have experience and hove done something. ( You show that you have done something by listing the steps that need to be taken to achieve the solution to the problem. The steps needed to achieve the vision. Conclude by enumerating your conclusions )
15. Getting Famous ( Getting Recognition for what you do)
Why should you care about being famous? To prevent your ideas from being ignored, according to Patrick Winston.
He has a method to get your ideas remembered called, the Winston Star.
- You need to get a symbol attached to your idea
- A slogan
- Surprise
- Salient idea ( doesn’t necessarily have to be the most important, just an idea that sticks out)
- Story — tell the story of how you did it, how it works and why it is important
16. How to stop — How to conclude
- Tell a joke
- Conclude with who you are — what you talk about and what people get out of it.
- Salute the audience — tell them how much you enjoyed the place
A thought provoking new idea I got from this talk
The idea of exposing an idea vs teaching it
Summary
People tend to get distracted while listening and reading. If you want to be more effective in your written and spoken communication, you need to put measures in place to keep a distracted audience engaged. Most of the techniques described here seem to be geared towards keeping the audience awake and engaged .
This advice seems to work best for structured, non spontaneous verbal communication.
