You and I worked hard to become experts in our field. To obtain our professional credentials. Law school’s tough. Medical school’s tough. MBA curriculum is tough. Engineering, architecture, dentistry and psychology . . . tough . . . the list goes on. Not everyone’s up to the task.
As professionals, you and I are already winners. We made it! But as good as we are, we can be better.
Universities drilled us linearly, training us to regurgitate on finals and licensure exams. So we entered the workforce with a checklist mentality, essentially practicing content over clarity of expression. No wonder we all too often bury our “persuasion” in data dump. The skill set that propelled us to conquer curriculum ironically competes with the skill set needed to influence others as thought leaders.
Last year, I spent nine months interviewing state district judges. Fifty-five of them. The project was birthed by a District Judge in North Central Texas who participated in a public presentation skills course. He said, “Russ, I wish you could teach the lawyers who come to my courtroom how to do this.”
“What do you mean, Judge?”
“Most lawyers don’t tell stories well; they bounce all over the place. They’re disjointed. They try to throw everything on the wall. I’m a lawyer and a judge. I think like lawyers do. And even I have a hard time following them. So I know that jurors struggle to do so.”
100% of the other judges I spoke with confirmed the problem.
To a judge, they opined that lawyers are very good at the legal technician side. The side they’re trained in . . . Getting things into evidence, handling legal objections, meeting burdens of proof. But every single judge went on to say it’s done to a fault. The casualty? – Persuasive communication.
Technical competence is not the same as persuasive competence. Lawyers must excel at both. So must professionals of any discipline or industry.
We must layer back into our arsenal what were once common behaviors. Cogent, germane storytelling. Artful persuasion. We came by these naturally. From infant to undergrad, we heard stories. We told stories. We persuaded others.
In the next several blog posts, I will offer tactics to resume doing just that.
And I’ll be talking to ME too!
© 2015 Russ Riddle. All rights reserved.