4 Proven Rules To Simplify Complex Ideas

Simple is hard. Ask any speaker who has struggles to explain their work to someone outside their field.

Stanford business school lecturer Matt Abrahams teaches his students to simplify complexity by having them follow four guidelines, lessons he reveals in his new book Think Faster, Talk Smarter.

I recently interviewed Abrahams to learn more about these proven and effective tactics to simplify even the most complex ideas.

1. Be precise

Before you speak—or even design your presentation slides—clarify your goals.

“Communication is a goal-driven activity, says Abrahams. But when people reflect on their communication goals—if at all—they consider only the information they wish to convey.”

In other words, they think about the content—the information—contained in the presentation. While it’s a good first step, a precise message also takes into account emotions and actions. So Abrahams suggests that speakers ask themselves three questions before preparing a presentation:

What information do I want my audience to know?

How do I want them to feel [inspired, excited, empowered]?

What action do I want them to take [enroll, write a check, buy a product]?

By reviewing the goals you hope to achieve, your presentation will be much more focused. And a focused presentation is easier to follow because the speaker carefully selected what information to keep and what information to leave out.

How do you know if you’re successful? For most people, it’s just getting through it. Goal do people know what you want them to know, feel what you want them to feel, and act like you want them to act?

2. Make the message relevant

“We often assume that our audience will be excited about the same things we are, and that’s not the case,” says Abrahams.

Tailor your message around content that’s relevant, salient, and important to your audience. This step, of course, requires that you do some homework on your audience beforehand to understand their needs and wants.

Making your message relevant reminds me of a lesson I learned on the first day of journalism school, a lesson I offer communicators in any field: Before writing an article or designing a presentation, ask yourself this question about your readers or listeners:

“Why should they care?”

If you start crafting a presentation from the audience’s perspective—and work backwards—the presentation your audience sees will be far more compelling than if you create a PowerPoint without keeping them top of mind.

3. Use accessible language

By definition, ‘accessible’ presentations are easy to say and easy to understand.

When you use complex words, specialized jargon, or unfamiliar acronyms, you might be showing off your technical prowess, but you’re also turning off your audience.

It’s important to understand that making your message accessible is not the same as “dumbing down” your content. Instead, you are simply keeping the audience’s knowledge in mind and meeting them where they are.

I recommend keeping language accessible by Warren Buffett’s simplicity test. When Buffett writes his now famous shareholder letters, he visualizes his reader. For his annual letters, he thinks about writing to his sisters: both are smart, investors in Berkshire Hathaway, but they’re not watching the financials closely on a daily basis.

Buffett makes his writing accessible, not confusing.

4. Be concise

Neurologists find that being concise makes messages easier to receive. “Uttering fewer words will usually allow us to connect better with audiences and keep their attention,” says Abrahams.

The old adage makes sense: Tell me the time. Don’t build me the clock.

Long-winded speakers are clock builders. But Abrahams has a tip he learned from attending an improvisational acting class. It’s called the “100-50-25” game, and terrific for practicing concise storytelling.

The game is played when actors are given a prompt such as a title, character or setting. For example, “A lost dog finds a new home.” Participants are asked to come up with a story of up to 100 words.

The real fun begins when they have to tell the same story in 50 words and, finally, in 25 words or less. For example, “Lucky the dog was lost and found a new home with a little girl and her family.” In just 17 words, the story has a beginning, middle and end. It also has several essential elements such as a dog, its name, what happened to it, and how it resolved its problem.

Abrahams says the point of the game is to teach participants to prioritize information and to make word choices that make an impact very quickly.

“Complexity can stand in the way of some of our most important conversations,” says Abrahams. Your ideas are too important to get blocked at the door—knock out any barriers between you and your audience.