Howard Schultz grew Starbucks from a Seattle boutique into the global mega-brand we all know today. At one time, he left Starbucks, but agreed to come back in 2008. In his first letter to employees upon his return, he said the company must shift its focus away from “bureaucracy” and back to customers. He wanted to focus on “Big Rules,” such as customer service, instead of checking boxes on the forms created to run the business.
Schultz’s story demonstrates that at the core of effective communication is your audience of listeners and how their mind works. In fact, one of my secrets to success is using three “Big Rules.” Let’s focus on your listeners, and how to best structure communication to effectively grab their attention and communicate your ideas.
Here are the three “Big Rules” I follow…
- The Magic Number Seven Rule
- The Pyramid Rule
- The Rule of Thirds
My next several posts in the Communicate to Win series will focus on each of these rules in detail. Let’s start with a little memory exercise to help illustrate the significance of using these rules.
Look at the list of words below for 30 seconds. Then, look away and try to write down as many of them as you can remember in 30 seconds.
| Russia Canada China United States Brazil | Australia India Argentina Kazakhstan Sudan |
How many did you write down?
If you got all 10 countriesl, you’re likely one of the first! Typically, people remember between five and nine of the country names on the list. This is a telltale sign that your audience can only retain so much information at one time! You have to think about your audience when you decide how to organize information and how much of it to present at once.
This brings us to Big Rule #1: the Magic Number Seven Rule. “The mind cannot hold more than about seven (plus or minus two) items in its short-term memory at any one time.”
Think back to when you’ve tried to remember someone’s phone number. Most of us running through our busy days have a hard time remembering 10 numbers (including the area code) without writing them down or saving them on our phones. The second we turn our attention elsewhere, they’re gone!
The Magic Number Seven Rule helps you define your upper limits. You want the information you deliver to be crystal clear. You want your listeners to understand and believe in your ideas with the least amount of explanation. For example, when giving a presentation, you should never use more than seven bullets on a PowerPoint slide.
Stay tuned tol learn the trick behind remembering all 10 countries!