A few weeks ago, I went on a long hike with five other friends. Key word: LONG. Twenty-four miles long. In one day. As they say in my neck of the woods, “That’s a fer piece,” even for a slow-paced walk and it’s definitely not normal for me. My overriding lesson from the day – 24 miles is a very long way to move my body under my own power. But there is much to learn from such an experience.

There was very little vertical terrain to navigate (the trail was near the coast). I never got winded. The hardest part was muddy bogs and slick logs. And avoiding ticks and blisters and cramps. My aging body did remarkably well. I finished with minimal pain and didn’t hold the group up. Mission accomplished. I was back to walking and kayaking two days later and never felt better.

But there were some interesting thoughts (perhaps even Deep Thoughts – hey, that’s a great title for a book!) from the trip. And several of my observations have direct application to communication. 

I knew three of the other hikers well; I knew one a little bit; and I didn’t know one at all before the trip. With more than nine hours on the trail (and the rest of a weekend) to share together, there was plenty of time to talk. When you give people space to talk, they usually will. Building on my word of the year (“Listen” – see last month’s newsletter), there is a need for NOT speaking. And when I stopped to listen, here’s what I learned from my trip that applies to communication. 

Content

I frequently work with clients who admit “I’ve got to know what I’m saying. I’m not good at riffing,” and others who claim, “I don’t have enough to say.”  I don’t believe them. No one on my trip was a professional communicator. Yet we managed to fill an entire weekend with discussions. Not all of our chatter was about blisters, weather, and trail blazes or “So, tell me about yourself.”  We covered drone restricted areas, cruises, gluten free diets, Boston, bridges, wildlife, surprises, target shooting and shell casings, speeding, hip surgery (I didn’t bring it up!), decision-making, two-headed snakes, the Grand Canyon, watches, and Skittles. The list was a lot deeper, but my memory didn’t catch it all. 

But this is the problem with almost all speakers. Their problem isn’t lack of content. It’s lack of organization and an ability to make it memorable for their audience. If the listeners can’t repeat what you said, you didn’t communicate, you talked.

Clarity (and expectations)

Our group was told in pre-event communication that the hike would be 21.2 miles. That’s pretty precise. After walking about six miles, we joined the formal trail that had mile markers. The first mile marker we saw said we had 18 miles to go. Uh, 18+6 is not 21.2. We used this as fodder to talk never-ending smack to our trip organizer, but it also was a mental obstacle to overcome. The added distance increased our expected trip time by an hour. When we arrived at 21.2 miles, it was noted that we’d be done already if the estimate was correct. The last three miles were the hardest, likely for that reason.

Another mathematical communication came in a listing in a logbook at one of the few shelters along our route. The written entry was the day before our trip and it said, “We saw an unexpected number of snakes.”  But without defining the expectation, we had no idea whether our route would be littered with slithering beasts or devoid of them (seeing zero snakes might be unexpected!). FWIW, we saw one snake. All day. Was that unexpected?  If you don’t know what your audience expects, it’s hard to say how your data will land. One of the investigative questions I use to help my clients in creating content is, “What does the audience want or expect to hear?”

Connection

At one point in our discussions, some past world event came up. Since there was about a 15-year difference in ages among our group, responses ranged from “I remember that vividly” to “I wasn’t alive then.”  One of the other guys gave his age at the event, which put us born the same year. I made a mental note and asked later when his birthday was. He gave me a date… the same date as my birthday!  The one guy I did not know was born the same exact day (same year) as I was. Turns out I wasn’t the oldest guy on the trip, by about eight hours. What seems like random coincidence forges a connection that will always bond me to this previous stranger. 

In your speaking, you never know what random facts will connect. It’s why the specific is so much more powerful than the generic. Name the town. List the hobbies. Describe the feeling. Your audience will listen through the filters of their lives and make a connection that generic statements will not.

No matter the environment you find yourself in, there is much to practice and learn about the art and science of communication. It isn’t just keynotes and presentations that matter. Every relationship and interaction is a chance to impact and be impacted. 

The journey to excellent communication has at least one glaring similarity to hiking, explained by Confucius: 

It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.

Communication Matters!  What are you saying?

Alan, your Online Stage Coach