Joseph McCormack - Brief: Make a Bigger Impact by Saying Less

Table of Contents

Cover design/Art direction: Megan Palicki

Illustration design: Joan Bueta

Copyright 2014 by Joseph McCormack. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

Published simultaneously in Canada.

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ISBN 978-1-118-70496-7 (cloth); ISBN 978-1-118-70528-5 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-70556-8 (ebk)

This is dedicated to my wife, Montse, the love of my life, and all my kids, who make talking at length a treasureMonica, Andrea, Isabel, Jordi, Joanna, Marina, Tomas, Marta, and Lucas.

Also, to my Mom and Dad.

When Joe asked me to write the foreword, I was literally in the middle of wrapping up my own book (Scaling Up) and I thought I couldn't do it.

I wanted to do something special (and brief!) and you know how hard it is to say something brief. Then, I changed my mind.

Read the book.

You're busy; we all are.

Be a master of brevity. Now get started.

Verne Harnish, Founder and CEO of Gazelles

When I first told my wife, Montse, and kids that I was writing a book called BRIEF, the jokes started flying. You could only imagine their comments. My friends and extended family followed suit saying the book should be only 10 pages long.

FunnyI'm still laughing.

All kidding aside, I want to thank all of them, particularly my wife, for their constant love and support. It has been wonderful to see their nonstop encouragement.

As for my coworkers, clients, and close collaborators, this book has given me a unique opportunity to have deeper conversations and start to dream with them about the possibilities of a less is more world. On many occasions, they have taken time from their day job to lend me a hand. In particular, Johnny, Angelo, Angela, and Megan have been invaluable to get BRIEF airborne.

There are a few people, Meghan and Joyce at Sheffield and Christine Moore at John Wiley & Sons, whom I have depended on throughout with an honest editorial push to omit needless words and make this a better book.

Regarding my current and former clients, I have shared their insights, commentary, successes, and failures all while respecting their confidentiality and excluding any sensitive information they have shared with me. In particular, I have changed some first names and omitted surnames of those serving in our country's Special Operations community.

Finally, for all of those that I have interviewed for this booka heartfelt thank you. Truly, this is a topic that affects us all.

Why BRIEF?

In our attention-deficit economy, being brief is what's desperately needed and rarely delivered.

When we fail to be clear and concise, the consequences can be brutal: wasted time, money, and resources; decisions made in confusion; worthy ideas rejected; people sent off in wrong directions; done deals that always seem to stall.

As the founder of a boutique marketing agency that helps clients such as Harley-Davidson, BMO Harris Bank, MasterCard, and W. W. Grainger get their stories straight, I know this is a rare skill.

For years, business and military leaders have complained to me about the same things. Mixed messages keep missing the mark. People are not on the same page. Long-winded presentations go nowhere.

For businesses to succeed in an information-laden and hyperbusy economy, the rambling has to stop. So I decided to write BRIEF, a step-by-step approach to get to the point quickly.

Anyone can learn how to make what's complex clear. After my firm was in business for just a few years, I was invited to develop an original curriculum for U.S. Special Operations Command in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. It turned out that some of the most elite members of our military were weak communicators. They admitted their mission-critical briefs were painfully long, buried in details, and impossible to decipher.

The transformative work with Special Operations wasand still isincredibly rewarding. That's how BRIEF was born. It's about lean communication. It's like Six Sigma for your mouth.

After a few days in our Narrative Mapping courses, I saw an immediate shift. They were able to leverage storytelling skills and BRIEF techniques to be clear and compelling when explaining complex missions. They delivered complicated information efficiently and effectively, with clearer context and more compelling explanations. They used fewer PowerPoint presentations. As a result, the leaders fostered better and more engaging conversations.

One of the participants commented, The difference is dramatic. Our briefs can prove that less is more.

I believe the lessons learned with U.S. Special Operations can be used in the corporate world by those who want to be concise and clear when sharing their story.

You're busy, so I've designed the book to be immediately useful. If you read and follow along actively, you will learn to create clarity and meaning and drive out waste and confusion.

The book is organized around a new form of ADD: awareness, discipline, and decisiveness.