When we know a lot about a subject it can create barriers to being understood. The result: people fail to remember or repeat what we want them to.

You might be a functional leader who knows a LOT about the technical detail of a product, project or service.

Or perhaps you’re a CEO drawn towards talking about strategy or on an organisational level.

If one of these sounds like you then you will struggle to get others to remember what you have said after you’ve finished communicating.

What can you do to avoid making this mistake?

I advise people to always put themselves in someone else’s shoes and see the world through their eyes. This means making what you say relevant and meaningful to them, not to you, will help you make a connection and remove barriers to being understood.

It isn’t just me and my 20+ years in communication that say this.

Psychologists discovered nearly 150 years ago that this was the right way to make sure what you are saying is remembered by the people that matter.

German psychologist, Hemann Ebbinghaus, discovered that meaningful things are remembered more than random, meaningless things.

JFK did this in his speech committing the US to win the space race when he said the Saturn V rockets would have the “power equivalent to 10,000 automobiles with their accelerators on the floor…”

People often use Wembley Stadium or London buses to try to achieve similar but equivalents that have actual meaning to people will be far more powerful.

It isn’t just about equivalents though. It can be examples, anecdotes, facts and figures.

It is all about rooting what you are saying in the world of the other person, making it meaningful not meaningless that is key.