Like many people with ADHD I am motivated by interest. I like learning and engaging with new and challenging topics. While this has many upsides in our modern knowledge economy, it meant I found it hard to present my findings and outcomes in a way that felt relevant, especially to senior audiences.
A little over a year ago, I reached a level where I’d be working directly with a client (responsibility win), but I was also doing the day-to-day work of delivering the project, which I found interesting and satisfying. I’d spend weeks exploring the twists and turns of a topic, talking to users and stakeholders, working with others to understand the minutiae and put it all together again. We’d do great work. But when the time came to play back recommendations to a client or to senior colleagues, certain key points wouldn’t land. My sense of what was ‘actually important’ had been skewed – partly because I hadn’t, by this point, spent much time really interacting with senior clients, but mostly because I was too close to the subject.
Around this time, one person’s advice really stuck (or rather, their exasperated question echoes around my head): What’s the “So what?”
Game-changer.
Take a simple example, let’s say you’re pitching for new work. Compare the following statements:
“We’ve done X, Y and Z (presumably impressive things).”
“We helped clients overcome challenges just like the ones you currently face, by doing X, Y and Z”
A clear ‘so-what’ guides your audience to the conclusions you want them to draw so it is, in a sense, manipulative - but there is no form of effective communication that isn’t. ‘So-what’ is the difference between death-by-powerpoint and a compelling, actionable piece of insight. It turns ‘interesting’ into ‘important’. And for someone with limited working memory, ‘so-what’ is also easier to remember and more natural to apply than the pyramid principle / top-down thinking, or any of the more elaborate communication frameworks out there. The three-part progression ‘what, so what, now what’ I also avoid, for a different reason: in my line of work, you might want to heavily imply the ‘now what’, but it’s generally a good idea to let your audience make at least one step for themselves!