Introduction
What are the characteristics of people with high verbal ability?
I will summarize this as a memorandum based on my own opinion and prejudice.
What is linguistic ability?
Here, verbalization ability is defined as the ability to put into words, or in other words, “the ability to convert what you are thinking in your head into words, and then convey it in an easy-to-understand way for the other person.”
Personally, I think it consists of three components. If any one of the three processes is lacking, the verbal ability will not be high.
- 1) Organize your thoughts: If you don’t organize your thoughts first, you won’t know what you’re thinking, so you won’t be able to use it as a basis to convey it to others.
- 2) Convert organized thoughts into words: Humans are not yet capable of telepathy, so we have to translate organized thoughts into words. An image close to a mapping.
- 3) Communicate to the other person: It is natural to say, “That person has great verbal skills,” but it is something that the person receiving the evaluation feels, and it is meaningless unless it is properly communicated to the person being evaluated.
The often-said statement, “To improve your verbalization skills, read and improve your vocabulary!” is partially correct, but it is only a necessary condition for training the second of the three components above. , is not a sufficient condition.
In addition, in the case of vocabulary in a business context, it is necessary to have a vocabulary that understands the technical terminology of the business you are involved in, including its definitions and assumptions, and you need to be able to understand general vocabulary by reading popular novels. In terms of further development, I think the direction of efforts is somewhat different in terms of improving verbalization skills in business. To be precise, it is inefficient (super arbitrary and biased) because it is a detour without a direct connection.
I think a rich vocabulary is necessary in the context of book and movie reviews, copywriting, etc., which require more emotional sharing and creative expressiveness.
What goes on in the minds of people who are good at verbalizing?
can understand things structurally
People with high verbalization abilities structure knowledge and information in their heads and understand the relationship between the whole and the parts. Do not leave fragmentary knowledge as it is. You can’t see the forest for the trees and you can’t see the forest for the trees.
As a side note, organizing information structurally uses the brain at the stage of organizing, but it also improves memory efficiency when retrieving information afterward, so it is also useful in terms of brain capacity. It’s better to do it consciously. On the other hand, if you are not conscious of it, it tends to become a low priority.
I previously wrote about structuring information (chunking) in this article.
Be able to prioritize information
- After being able to understand things structurally, you can identify important points from a huge amount of information and prioritize them.
- All information does not have the same value, so it is necessary to sort and prioritize information. Moreover, this differs depending on the point of interest of the person to whom the information is conveyed.
For example, when trying to introduce an online medical interview service called Melp WEB Interview, which I have been using, to a hospital, there are various stakeholders to whom I am explaining, and each has different interests. It is necessary to change the priority of information and communicate it.
- For managers (directors): A simple explanation of how much transcription to electronic medical records is reduced compared to traditional paper interviews, which leads to reductions in personnel costs (benefits), and how this compares with the implementation cost. to encourage decision-making
- For medical offices: How much easier is the work compared to traditional paper interviews (for the people actually doing the work) + Learning costs are not high
- For information systems: How safe is it in terms of security + benefits of implementation?
Increase or decrease the level of abstraction to suit the audience and provide the necessary and sufficient explanation.
- Verbalization ability also includes the ability to convey information in accordance with the other party’s understanding and background.
- Methods include using analogies, aligning premises and definitions, etc.
While you are giving an explanation, you are required to sense whether the other person is understanding from their gestures and reactions and to adjust the level of concreteness and abstraction of your explanation in real-time.
This is a very advanced skill, and at first, it seems like everyone is focused only on themselves, thinking, “I have to convey this well to the other person,” but as you get used to it, you’ll be able to relax, and in the next stage. , dynamically change the level of abstraction of your explanation by focusing on the other person’s reaction and understanding rather than on yourself.
Example) When explaining SEO strategy to management
You: “As an SEO measure, I changed the existing subdomain structure to a subdirectory…”
Manager: (frows his eyebrows or looks confused)
You: “(Ah, I don’t think you know what a subdomain is. (Let’s add an explanation) A subdomain is a string added before the domain, such as sub.example.com, which has “sub” in front of the domain “example.com”. A subdirectory is example.com/sub plus the domain followed by a string.”
Able to distinguish between facts and opinions
This seems to be true, but the article below explains from an interesting point of view why some people can’t distinguish between facts and opinions.
“I’m sorry for leaving in the middle of yesterday’s sales.Have you decided whether you want to hire us?”`
` I think it’s okay. ”“It’s okay…I want to know if it’s decided or not.””Ah, it hasn’t been decided yet.”
“I see, I thought it would be decided, but…Did the customer mention any concerns?” “ It seemed like he was dissatisfied with the price. ”
“Let me ask you again, did you “say” you were dissatisfied? ”
“No, I’m sure… I don’t think he said that.”Source: Why are some people unable to distinguish between “facts” and “opinions”?
The reason we can’t distinguish between facts and opinions is because the human brain is wired to “if a question is difficult, we replace it with an easier question.”
And since this is a problem of “attention” rather than “smartness,” the article’s authors say it can be fixed. At first, you should exercise your attentiveness and practice checking what you are trying to answer, even if it takes some time.
If you try to do it in conversation all of a sudden, you won’t have time to pay attention, so start by writing it down on paper.
When a report is difficult to understand → Tell me the conclusion.
When the story is not coherent → Write it down here.
When conveying something important to your boss or customer → Pay attention to the words.
When your memory is fuzzy.→ Make sure to compile records of meetings and sales on the same day.
How to improve verbalization skills?
I think there are several ways to do it, but personally, I think the big problem is that if you can’t understand things structurally, you end up with ad hoc explanations.
Therefore, I feel it is important to focus on understanding the overall position of the work you are doing. For example, if you are using SNS advertising as part of your marketing strategy, first understand what marketing methods are available, including online and offline, and the characteristics of each. I think this can be done by reading relevant books or searching for web articles.
After understanding each method, understand the overall and individual relationships as to why it is necessary to use SNS advertising now (basically, I think the reason is that the CPA is lower than other methods). The explanation will then naturally be structured from the general to the specific.
And when it comes to SNS advertising, there are various options such as FB, This will become more concrete, as examples of similar service promotions have been successful.
I don’t think I can learn it overnight, so I will try my best.
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