Drop the Pink Elephant - Dump the baggage and create clarity

The latest book I'm reading is called "Drop the Pink Elephant", by Bill McFarlan. Lifting off the synopsis, the book "reveals how to avoid the deadly trap of allowing poor communication skills to obscure your meaning and reduce your effectiveness".

This blog post gives a summary of Section 1: Dump the Baggage and Create Clarity.

If I said to you now 'Don't think of a Pink Elephant', does a clear picture of a pink elephant appear in your mind?

The author defines a Pink Elephant to be an "unnecessary, and normally vivid, negative". It usually pops up unprompted ( I'm doing this not because.../ It's not that we're afraid .../ No offence, but ...), because we're worried that somebody is thinking negatively, so we say it before they do.

Unfortunately, Pink Elephants only draw attention to the very thing you want to avoid.

Also, phrasing statements using negatives don't tell you much. Putting a sign outside your shop that says "Open 7am - 7pm" would be more useful than one that says "Not Open 24 hours".

Tip: Describe what is happening, rather than deny what you believe is someone else's perception of events. Stick to the positive point.

Tip: Another way to create clarity is to allow the audience to paint a picture with your words. Analogies should also be used to turn abstract concepts and jargon into bright pictures. When using analogies, find appropriate ones that everyone can relate to.