The 60 seconds that make or break a conversation | Chris Fenning

**Elise Hu** (0:04)
You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hu.
We all know we should be clear and concise when we communicate. But how often does anyone actually teach us how to do that?
Communication expert Chris Fenning says that gap between knowing we should and knowing how costs us more than we realize.

**Chris Fenning** (0:28)
Every year, poor communication costs businesses hundreds of billions of dollars in lost productivity.

**Elise Hu** (0:35)
In this talk, Chris argues that the fix isn't about talking more or writing longer. It comes down to getting the very first minute of every conversation right because that opening can make or break everything that follows. Chris shares a simple three-part technique for clearer communication, so the other person knows exactly what you're talking about, why you're telling them, and what you need. That's coming up right after a short break.
And now, our TED Talk of the day.

**Chris Fenning** (1:16)
I want to be long-winded and unclear.
It's not a common opening line. Most people won't tell us when they're going to be long-winded, but we know. We can tell pretty quickly if someone's going to get to the point, or if we are in for a long and painful conversation. And this is especially true at work. Every year, poor communication costs businesses hundreds of billions of dollars in lost productivity. And I have to confess, the early part of my career, I was responsible for at least some of that. But I'm not alone. Hands up if you work with someone who is long-winded or unclear.
That's a lot of hands. Now I'm sure we are all thinking about people outside this room, right? Except for those of you pointing at each other.
But what would happen if we asked the people outside this room? They might be thinking about us. And while our goal is to be clear and concise, do we really know how?
Every time we communicate, we have an opportunity to create clarity or confusion. And clarity begins from the very first minute. If you get the first minute right, you set your conversation up for success. Get it wrong, your conversations will be longer, less effective, and more frustrating.
Now, on the off chance, we could all use a little more clarity. I'm going to share a tip with you today, a tip that will help each of you improve the success of your communication at work, a tip that has been tested by more than 75,000 people around the world, and a tip that will help each of you get the first minute right. And here it is. There are three things we must include at the start of our work messages. And those three things begin with T, I, and P. It's a tip. Now, the first part of the tip is the T, and T stands for topic. Every conversation at work needs a clear topic. When the topic is clear, everyone knows what we're talking about. Everyone's in sync. Everybody understands. Unfortunately, reality isn't always like this, is it? How often are you in a conversation, and you find yourself thinking, what are you talking about?
That happens when the topic is not clear. Now, usually, the consequences are pretty minor, a little bit of wasted time, some minor frustration. But sometimes, the consequences are more significant. In 2006, I was part of an engineering team writing a bid, a proposal that was worth a lot of money to our company. And a couple of days before the big meeting, my boss came up to me and said, hey, Chris, I need you to change the meeting from Tuesday to Thursday. So off I went, and I changed the meeting. I typed an e-mail, sent it to the client, saying, something's come up, we've got to change. And about a minute after I hit send, my phone rings. It's my boss. He had one question.
Why did you change the meeting?
You see, he was talking about our one-to-one, and I was thinking about the client meeting. The lack of a clear topic meant he and I were thinking about two very different things. Now, that might be the single biggest contribution I've made to the cost of bad communication, but it also marks the moment at which I began to be interested in improving how we communicate at work. So all our messages have to begin with a clear topic. But how? How do we do this? It's really easy. Start your message with one sentence that names the topic you want to talk about. And the more specific, the better. You could say, I'd like to talk about July sales figures. I want to talk about Project Everest's timeline. Or, can I talk about our one-to-one this week? One message, one sentence, that lets your audience know what the topic is. They won't be thinking, what are you talking about?