Why should you ⏳ W.A.I.T. & K.I.S.S. in a meeting or interview?

In a world full of news, comments, tweets, shares, stories, swipes, likes and notifications, there are several reasons to *W.A.I.T and *K.I.S.S. in a meeting, interview, pitching, demo or e-mail.

⌚The short

• Ask yourself Why Am I Talking (W.A.I.T) before starting a topic or after your listened to your conversation partner. It is quite important to make sure that you are on the same page and that you will add value to the conversation
• And after you already have a good idea/goal on what you want to say and Keep it Short & Simple (K.I.S.S). No matter how complex a topic is, simplify it. It is a sign of intelligence and understanding perfectly if you can explain any complex process or issue in a few sentences. Add some charisma and you will be perfect. Not to mention that you will save everyone’s time and share some valuable knowledge in just a few minutes.

🎢 The long

Now, there are a bunch of media articles saying that we have the attention span of a goldfish (or less), but goldfish are nice and I think the articles are just rumours since there is no scientific data to back this argument.

But the truth is that we started to struggle with our attention or to seek for rewards or approval on the spot. You might’ve seen that lots of people are always having their phones by their side constantly or just checking from time to time, even though there is a conversation going.

Don’t get me wrong: I do love our tech world and the speed of it (with all its anxieties and algorithms). I am just trying to keep up with the mix between the online and offline.

So, let’s start with some data. Because data never lies, never sleeps, never stops and makes the magic happen.

Domo report for all the data per minute in the last year

Yes, I know, I am a sucker when it comes to stats.🤓 Now, back to this W.A.I.T. & K.I.S.S. stuff, that is not about Tinder.

Ok, so in a world that goes so fast and one has so many choices, how can you convince people of something or make them interested in what you’re saying?

Here are some tips, so you won’t get “swiped left” in an important meeting, interview, pitching session or e-mail ☟

1. 🔓 Breathe normally (seriously, it helps to relax) and ask yourself Why Am I Talking: is it for endorsement or attention, wanna be (overly) helpful and pour all your information into this conversation, is it to step-up and be the highlight or the conversation leader, do you want to be emphatetic and complain or whine a lot? Or is to be the right answer, at the right moment for the righ people? As you can imagine, all these are ok, it just depends on the social context. But talking business, you want to be the right guy. Right? So how do you do it?
2. ⏳ You wait. You carefully listen and ask insightful, sharp and clear questions. This will clarify the needs and expectation of your conversation partner a lot and will give you enough time to also analyse this information. Not to mention that people will feel heard, understood and seen when you engage in a constructive way.
3. 🎬 You K.I.S.S: Keep it Short and Simple (or, keep it simple, stupid).
   Like you do it on Twitter.
   All the information that you gathered is data and if you just throw all the numbers around, people will just roll their eyes — seriously, how many people are checking the latest stats in the world about anything and are actually wow-ing?
   But if you offer a solution to the pain points and use all the information and knowledge to present your idea like a nice infographic or a short common comparison, you’re gonna be the right answer. at the right moment.
4. 📩 Writing the first mail and you still want to impress instead of asking? Writing e-mails (or anything, in general) is a pain in the a*s. Especially when it is highly important for you.
   If you get stuck, just take a break and do not write essays about how cool you are. Nor what a great deal it is having you aside. There are plenty of services up there. Plenty of people offering more or less the same thing.
   Be simple, straightforward and constructive while covering the pain points of your sender in a few lines — if possible, make it as lenghty as a phone screen and a scroll. Just highlight their challenges, how can you support them in getting over them and what you can do to make everything go well.

Apply this in everything you do or say — your life will be way more easy and you will also save everyones’ time.

⛔ A few don’ts ⛔
Do not over analyse it
Do not add too many descriptive words
Do not make it more complex to sound smarter
Do not add super fancy acroynms (like I did in this story).

THE END & A fun fact: K.I.S.S. is a design principle from the U.S. Navy, coined by a badass engineer who designed spy planes (among others). This evolved in different shapes in the meanwhile and there are lots of things that you could also think of: minimalism, simplicity, concision, Occam’s razor (that I wrote about very briefly once upon a time)