Short motivational coaching monologue by Chad Silverstein emphasizing the importance of being specific, concrete, and actionable when setting goals and communicating. He recounts a client practice where repeated articulation improves clarity, and advises leaders and reports to pause, be deliberate, measure progress, and put plans in writing when needed.
Chapters
I had practice this morning with one of my clients, and this came up because most people, when they're thinking about their productive actions or they're thinking about goals, some people like to call it smart goals. They don't do a very good job being specific and concrete and making something actionable. And so words are just words until you actually turn them into something. And so if you're going to be effective and you want to be successful and you want to improve and get better, then you better be really specific with what you're going after. And you want to make everything very concrete and you want to make everything actionable. And so if you're a leader and you're communicating, you want to make sure you speak that way. If you're a direct report and you're reporting to someone how you're doing and reporting, you know, at the end of the month, whether you hit your goals and what you're going to do the next month, you want to make sure you do this. And it's such a hard thing for people. Most people talk in generalities, and unfortunately for most people who don't know how to effectively communicate or articulate what they're thinking, the first time that you say something, it usually never comes out in a way that you actually hoped it did. And so a lot of times in our ability practices, when people are sharing, we ask them to say it again, and then we frustrate them a little bit more and we say say it again. We make them repeat it a few times, and usually on the third or fourth try, they nail it. They nail it, and everybody can feel it and sense it, and hopefully the person saying it can. And a lot of times we ask, did you feel the difference? And they always say yes, because sometimes it's hard to take what's going on in our head and then bring. Bring it out and make it real by. By articulating it. And so when you're asked questions and you're on the spot, you got to pause and you got to think, and you just need to be a little bit more deliberate about how you're communicating with people. And when you're talking about goals and you're talking about taking action, you have to make sure that you're being specific, concrete, and actionable, or else they're just words and they don't mean anything and people aren't going to understand what you're talking about. So be very clear, concise, direct, specific, concrete, actionable. Make things that, you know, set things that you can measure and be very specific. That's probably the most important piece for me, is that you're specific and that you know what you're saying and why you're saying it, and that you can clearly articulate it. And if you don't do that and you recognize it, circle back and repair it and put it in writing. It's the best discipline I could probably share that every leader should be doing and every leader would love to receive from someone on their team.
