Page 97 - The New Articulate Executive_ Look, Act and Sound Like a Leader

88 DELIVERY

out his bottom line, edit and review it in his mind to make sure he
left nothing out and added nothing extraneous, and then sum it all

up crisply, clearly, and with confidence. Happily, this was no prob-
lem because he had already worked with me in sessions to sharpen
his powers of concentration on demand and under pressure.
The 8-second drill in a conversation about nuclear weapons in
the post–Cold War period might be:

The most dangerous single threat to civilization is the spread of
atomic bomb technology and other weapons of mass destruction
to Islamic extremists and the Third World.

The 8-second drill about a local pollution problem might be:

Our river is dying. We have got to take action now to save it—
before it’s too late.
Interestingly, when people have experienced the 8-second drill
in a training session—driving from three minutes down to eight
seconds—they become amazed at how many unnecessary words
they commonly use to talk about even the simplest subjects. They
are even more surprised when they try to reverse the process—push-
ing back out to three minutes from eight seconds—often fi nding it

is actually difficult to go beyond forty seconds.
The 8-second drill is an exercise my clients experience in the
course of their leadership communication coaching. But anyone can
practice the 8-second drill at home. Here’s how it works:

1. Pick a timely or pressing business topic to talk about for three
minutes. Take a position. Have an opinion. Don’t just narrate a list
of facts, a historical chronology, or a loose set of concepts without
evidence to back them up. For example, instead of talking about
“Globalization in the next century,” talk about “Our survival as a
nation may depend on our ability to dominate global markets in the
next century.” That’s a position.