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A Good Flow - Communication Wisdom from Ancient Ireland

Thoth reads a lot. He recently came across some excerpts from the Irish Triads, a collection of proverbs and wise sayings from the ancient Irish. These people had writing, but they told their stories, and conducted their business and law via the spoken word. This is what they had to say about communication:

"Three qualities of good narration: Conciseness, a good flow, depth of thought."

What Is Flow?

Now depth of thought and conciseness are obvious. Have something important to say and don't waste time saying it. But what makes for a good flow? And how can you make sure your business communication has it?

We've all heard speakers who were painfully awkward and stumbled over their presentations. We've also heard speakers whose delivery was smooth, yet the ideas they strung together, on reflection, didn't add up. And we've certainly all read emails and business documents where we've gotten to the end and said, "Huh?"

In all these cases, communication failed because the speaker or writer lacked good flow.

Getting Good Flow

At first glance, flow may seem mysterious. And to analyze it intellectually is difficult. Flow has to do with the sound of words, the rhythm of sentences, the stringing together of ideas in an orderly and graceful way.

If you read a bit of poetry or a speech by Abraham Lincoln, you see immediately they have good flow. But how do you get it?

Fortunately, for business communicators there are a few simple techniques.

You have good flow naturally when you are speaking to someone directly about something you know and have conviction about. You focus on your message and the subconscious mind handles the flow effortlessly.

So, to achieve good flow:

1. Know your message in all its details and know why it is important.
2. For an oral presentation, practice as though you were speaking it to a single person. Visualize yourself talking to that one individual. Record yourself and then listen.
3. If you're writing, do the same: Imagine you are simply telling your message to a single person and write it down with just those words. Then read it back aloud and consider the flow.

For both speaking and writing, the analysis phase is the same. If the flow's not good in a few places, chances are you're unsure about those points and need to think them through to be sure you know what you're saying and why. Take care that you're not overstating or being redundant. Be sure you're telling the truth and telling it straight. If the overall flow of an oral presentation is awkward, perhaps you just need to practice more.

Practice Practice Practice

Like anything else, good flow comes from practice. To achieve perfect flow, the ancient Irish bards recited their verses repeatedly in a dark hut for days at a time. Luckily, for those of us who need to communicate in business, the practice required is not so long or demanding.

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