We get our languages confused. Allow me to clarify.
We communicate via 2 languages. The language we write. The language we speak. And that’s merely our surface conversation.
I just delivered a TEDx talk at Praca Gil Eanes in Lagos/Portugal, and I was reminded of this fact. Again. What I jotted down as I created my talk did not always flow as I tried to speak it. My language needed to change.
The more we think of the language we write and the language we speak as two separate but complementary languages, the more impactful our communications will be. The demands of each are often quite different.
When it comes to writing, our collective preferences - especially in business - have morphed toward concise, efficient, condensed, pared down. Less is more. When it comes to spoken language, we more often than not want to be engaged, moved, inspired.
Not always as concise.
You’ve spoken to those colleagues whose verbal communication sounds like a written memo. Not pretty, right? Think of it this way:
Written language = little color
Spoken language = a lot more color
These thoughts were upfront in my mind as Steve, Head of Engineering for a global manufacturing firm, and I were reviewing his communication styles last week. We looked at some of Steve’s written strategy documents. Lengthy, detailed, and yet lean. And then we explored how Steve can add a lot more color as he speaks about what’s written.
Enter adjectives. We have eliminated adjectives from most written communications. When we speak, however, it’s the single most powerful clarifier and context-shaper at our disposal.
Here are some examples:
The adjective instantly changes our understanding of this statement, doesn’t it? It adds color. It clarifies context. It expands or constricts. Most importantly, it deepens meaning.
The adjectives clarify how we hear the statement. Since adjectives are feeling words, they also activate a more emotional response within us. We start to care more deeply about what is being said. The premise of all marketing and advertising.
The adjective sets the mood. It creates an expectation. It primes us for a future experience - and simply by saying it will be so, it is more likely that it will, indeed, be so.
Adjectives are THAT powerful. We have banished them from one of our languages – the written. Do not banish them from your spoken language.
Uri Hasson, a neuroscientist at Princeton University, conducts speaker-listener research about how two brains get into sync (Uri Hasson, Ted talk, “This Is Your Brain On Communication”). I quote Hasson in my TEDx talk. Hasson calls this process “neural coupling.” This coupling is the means by which two people understand each other.
In Hasson’s research, the key area of the brain that shows coupling is the insula, an area linked with conscious feeling states. In other words, neural coupling and richer connection are much more likely when you activate an emotion inside me.
Adjectives are not the only way to activate an emotion. They are, however, the absolutely simplest way of doing so.
If you’re not an “adjective person” – that’s just not how you talk – please dump that story of yourself. Language is learned behavior. Learn to, in this case, speak a language that deepens context and clarifies meaning. Speak the language of adjectives. Do some thesaurus homework if you need to. Cultivate a vocabulary of richly resonant adjectives. And then start sprinkling your speaking language with contextually helpful adjectives.
People will hear you differently.
They will respond differently.
Be amazed.
