Speak to Be Understood: A Leadership Lesson in Simplicity

A note to young leaders.

Here’s another valuable lesson I learnt from the late, great John R Caldon, former Deputy MD of Macquarie Group.

When you speak, don’t pride yourself on sounding intelligent – pride yourself on being intelligible. Don’t use big words unless you strictly need to.

Your aim should never be to impress – but to express. Simplify, don’t complexify.
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

And if you can’t explain your business idea to a teenager in one or two sentences, you don’t understand it well enough.