Captivating and Inspiring Your Audience: The "Short and Smart" KISSing Technique -- Skills, Steps, and Strategies: Part II

Part I, made a case for placing the "superior" slogan KISS – Keep It Simple, Stupid or Keep It Simple Stupid – out to proverbial pasture. To be a high impact communicator in today's TNT – Time-Numbers-Technology – driven and distracted world one must cultivate and spread a new and compact message-delivery technique. It's a practice and performance that is engaging and edgy, deceptively simple yet, being concise, packs a high energy quality punch. Are you ready to become a "Short and Smart" KISSer?

The Stress Doc's KISSing Technique – Skills, Steps, and Strategies!

There are several maneuvers for spicing up your KISS without having to resort to the French technique.  (Obviously, I’m keeping said tongue well planted in my own cheek.) Let me count several ways of enabling your communication-message to be “Short and Smart”...and also compelling:

1. Acronyms. Clearly, acronyms allow a message to be succinct and powerful (if not always “smart” in the “Emotionally Intelligent” sense of the word). KISS and my real definition or source of jaw pain – TMJ: Too Many Jerks!…these letters and lines definitely package a message and pack a punch; also, see “Alliteration” below. Through form and function, acronyms allow for the selection of a manageable and digestible number of key “food for thought” elements. Not only do acronyms help make a message seem meaty, in addition they make it memorable or, at least, easier to remember. For example my “Natural SPEED Formula for Stress Resiliency and Brain Agility: Sleep-Priorities-Passion-Empathy-Exercise-Diet." Of course, use some discretion; it’s easy to OD on acronyms.  I’m a charter member of the new 12-step AA group: Acronyms Anonymous!

2. Analogy. Analogy is a similarity been two things, having features that, at a first glance, are not always seen as related. This categorization process evokes a comparison whereby the resemblance may be more readily and rapidly understood. For example, the great yet ornery Boston Red Sox baseball slugger, Ted Williams, was called "The Splendid Splinter." Not only can a splinter be a symbolic visual for a bat, but "The Kid" could definitely be a pain in the butt!

Analogy enables us to a) take familiar knowledge and experiment in a new arena or have a new situation challenge a conventional view, e.g., my book title – Practice Safe Stress, b) to perceive common threads among disparate elements or situations, e.g., my Shrink Rap™ line, "inside your car looks like a pocketbook on wheels," c) sort wheat from chaff, and d) rapidly and often reliably get to or illustrate the crux of a problem (or healing possibilities), thereby facilitating new perspective, applications, or adaptations…talk about a smart (and survival-driven) conceptual strategy.

Consider how "tree of life" imagery and analogy infuses my post-earthquake draft of a Nepali "Be Well Initiative" Philosophy. (I am a founding member of the BWI community health planning team):

The "Be Well Initiative" (BWI) for the Nepali Diaspora has its roots in the natural earthquake trauma and tragedy. However, it's branches of healing and hope are presently reaching out to both local Nepali and Bhutanese Nepali communities in cities and states across the United States. We wish to touch the overall Nepalese collective throughout our country. And as our tree of research, knowledge, and compassion grows, hopefully, other countries will share the fruits of our labor and plant their own trees.

More Metaphor and Imagery in a Short Story

Or use metaphor or comparative imagery to put some flesh on a message bone. Let me provide a personal example. When I submit program titles for various speaking engagements, a frequent title or subtitle is: “Combat Strategies at the Burnout Battlefront.” People often feel there are war zone elements in their work situation. I recall VA Head Nurses introducing themselves at the start of a stress workshop by barking out their last names and their wards: “Walker, W-14, Thompson, W-18, Jones W-20.” I immediately exclaimed, “It sounds like your reporting from the battle stations!” Their sighs and nodding heads let me know I was on target.

So even if “Burnout Battlefront” is an exaggeration, folks believe I have a sense of their intense work conditions/stress levels. Though for these nurses it wasn’t much of an exaggeration. Their two favorite slogans: Do your eight and it the gate; nine to five and stay alive! (We’ve previously illustrated, a slogan or an adage is another way of generating an effective KISS.) As for the extreme conditions, maybe it was a coincidence, though I don’t believe so…the very caring Director of Nursing who brought me in to lead the workshop was dead within a year from cancer.

P.S. Surely, another way to convey “short and smart” is through a pithy "short story," especially one that effectively and efficiently ranges from the playful to the poignant or vice versa.

3. Alliteration and Rhyme. Or try animating a KISS by using alliteration (see above); repeating the same letter at the beginning of a word, e.g., “burnout battlefront” and "TnT" (Trauma and Tragedy); or repeating similar sounds, which takes us into the realm of rhyme. The aforementioned nurses’ slogan will do: “Do your eight and hit the gate; nine to five and stay alive.” Walk the talk clearly has permeated mass consciousness. Alliteration and rhyme give your words a “rhythm” – a beat, a pace, a cadence, a pulse – which makes your message vibrate, makes it distinctive, and helps capture peoples’ attention. A radio host recently thanked me for being on his show and added, You have a unique rhythm to your speech that I want to tap on; you have great delivery. Thanking him, I mentioned trying to project the emotional valence of just about every word or phrase that I use. As well as employing purposeful pauses. (Many moons ago, as a novice starting in radio, getting speech lessons from a theatre actress definitely helped.)

4. Short and Smart but also Silly or Sly. Clearly, so many try to employ or simply enjoy humor as it helps grab attention, may facilitate social bonding, or defuse interpersonal tension; and a good laugh relieves stress. As many humor students have noted, laughing with gusto is like turning your body into a big vibrator, giving vital organs a brief but hardy internal massage…talk about a “short and smart” message! (Of course, in addition to healing or harmonizing humor there’s the hostile variety. Darn, now I may need to start an Alliterations Anonymous group as well.) And when your message can both quickly, and mostly gently, poke fun of cultural icons while helping us knowingly laugh at our own flaws and foibles…well that’s one desirable if not delicious KISS. Consider the opening lines of the Stress Doc’s Stress Rap:

When it comes to feelings do you stuff them inside?

Is tough John Wayne your emotional guide?

And it’s not just men so proud and tight lipped

For every Rambo there seems to be a Rambette!

As I once penned, People are less defensive and more open to a serious message gift-wrapped with humor!

5. Be Surprising and Provocative. For some, a message that’s both short and smart may seem contradictory if not oxymoronic. Actually, as noted in Part I with Twain's quote, when you place “short and smart” content in a quick and unexpected package you basically have captured the definition of thought-provoking "wit." Practice Safe Stress anyone?

Or consider this provocative short story. I recall a government agency alienating a number of its administrative staff by not eliciting their input regarding a change process directly impacting the employees' day-to-day document processing operations. First, I helped management acknowledge their major misstep. People were grieving the loss of the familiar, also needing to express appropriate frustration with top-down and exclusive decision-making. There definitely was a dark cloud sense of loss of control, if not feeling devalued as meaningful team members. Fortunately, my suggestion to hold a "Forms Funeral" (catch the alliteration?) – whereby folks could eulogize some of the old and share their concerns about the new, combined with management committing to a more participatory operational culture – proved to be the pass in the impasse!

Closing Summary

This essay illustrates a variety ways of enabling your KISS-message to be “Short and Smart”...and also compelling:

1. Acronyms: KISS and TMJ

2. Analogy: The Splendid Splinter and Tree of Life

3. Alliteration and Rhyme: Burnout Battlefront and Walk the Talk

4. Short and Smart but also Silly or Sly: Shrink Rap and Rambo and Rambette

5. Be Surprising and Provocative: Practice Safe Stress and Forms Funeral Story

Whether using pithy poetic-like nicknames or phrases or sharing passionately purposeful short stories, your reputation as a persuasive KISSer will precede you. All I can say is...Amen and Women to that!

Mark Gorkin, MSW, LICSW, "The Stress Doc" ™, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, is an acclaimed keynote, kickoff and webinar speaker as well as a "Motivational Psychohumorist & Communication Catalyst." Stress Doc programs help an audience "Get FIT"– by being FUN, Interactive, and Thought-provoking. The Doc is a Training and Stress Resilience Consultant for TrainingPros and The Hays Companies, an international corporate insurance and wellness brokerage group. He has also led “"Stress and Communication,” as well as “Managing Change, Humor, and Team Building" leadership retreats for a variety of units at Ft. Hood, Texas and for Army Community Services and Family Advocacy Programs at Ft. Meade, MD and Ft. Belvoir, VA as well as Andrews Air Force Base/Behavioral Medicine Services.

A former Stress and Violence Prevention Consultant for the US Postal Service, the Doc is the author of Practice Safe Stress, The Four Faces of Anger, and Resiliency Rap. .  The Stress Doc blog appears in such platforms as HR.com, WorkforceWeek.com, and MentalHelpNet.  His award-winning, USA Today Online "HotSite" -- www.stressdoc.com -- was called a "workplace resource" by National Public Radio (NPR).

With his singular wit and wisdom, real world tools, and especially his surprising and engaging small group exercises, the Doc encourages participants to "go for it."  Audiences develop skills and strategies for unleashing dynamic energy and reducing status barriers. Learn to purposely inspire and collaborate with others. As SHRM and IPMA-HR Program Chairs noted, Mark has a way of captivating an audience and makes them want to hear more...Take a passionate and creative ride with the Stress Doc!