The Need For Clear And Simple Communication

Here's a fun but poignant activity to introduce the need for clear communication whether it's via eMail, document or spoken words.

I like to use this activity immediately after lunch or to introduce a communication module.  You could use it during workshops such as:

• Leadership Development
  
  
• Management Training
  
  
• Customer Service
  
  
• Presentation Skills

etc

Preparation

Prepare a handout that contains the following headings and text:

Proverbs

Reduce these sentences to familiar proverbs. Have fun!

• Your immature gallinaceans must not be calculated prior to their being produced
  
  
• A perissaodactyl ungulate mammal may be addressed toward the aqueous fluid, but it cannot be compelled to quaff.
  
  
• It is fondness for notes of exchange that constitutes the tuberous structure of all satanically inspired principles.

• Lithoidal fragments ought not to be hurled by tenants of vitreous abodes.
  
  
• Beholden vessel never exceeds on hundred degrees Celsius.
  
  
• A feathered creature clasped in the manual members is the equivalent, value wise, of a brace in the bosky growth.
  
  
• A detached fragment of the terrestrial lithosphere, whether of igneous, sedimentary or metamorphic origin and whether acquiring its approximation of sphericity through hydraulic action or other attrition, when continuously maintained in motion about its temporary axis and with its velocity accelerated by an increase I the angle of declivity, is, because of abrasive action produced by the incessant but irregular contact between its periphery and the contiguous terrain, effectively prevented from accumulating on its external surface an appreciable amount of the cryptogamous vegetation normally propagated in umbrageous situations under optimum conditions of undeviating atmospheric humidity, quiescence, and comparative sequestration form corrosive-erosive agencies.

How To

• Hand a copy of the prepared sheet to each learner.
  
  
• Ask learners to work in small teams of 3-4 people.
  
  
• Ask them to try and uncover the familiar proverbs.  Let learners know they can also work across teams and share their answers.
  
  Nowbody ever complains that messages are too easy to understand

• Allow a few minutes.
  
  
• Ask for answers and suggest alternatives to answers you were not expecting.  (See answers below this How To section)
  
  
• Lead a brief discussion about what learners feel to be the significance of this activity in terms of communication.

This should lead into your module on communication and the need to when communicating to be clear and concise.

Answers

•  Don't count your chickens before they hatch
• You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink
• The love of money is the root of all evil
• People in glass houses should throw stones
• A watched kettle never boils
• A bird in the hand is worth 2 in the bush
• A rolling stone gathers no moss