The synthesis of an idea

Many people waffle. On and on. 
Not conscious of the passing of time. 

As the talking continues, it’s harder to hold the thread of the information and it’s more challenging for us to keep paying attention. 

With increased stress and uncertainty in these times, most of us are experiencing reduced capabilities. It's tougher to take in information and process it effectively, for example. 

We must consider how we package information for people: presenting it in ways that make it easier to take in, quicker, clearer. 

Just talking, endlessly, won’t land an idea. 

Synthesis is a tool.

It’s how you analyze everything, bringing all of the parts together, reducing it down to something that can be taken on. It's not simplifying. It's synthesising. 

And it helps people better take up information in times of pressure, challenge and uncertainty. 

Edit again and make it shorter. 
Cut and carve up for shorter sentences. 
Package it up, in a package. 

That information you’re about to send ... revisit it and see how you can synthesise it further. 

Help the receivers do less work. 

Applause to the synthesizers

To those who make sense of mess.

Who connect the dots and help us understand what’s going on. 

To those who just look at a spreadsheet and know what’s going on. 

Who can succinctly summarize the outcomes of a meeting, the key points of a presentation, the plot of a film. 

We applaud you. We so need you. 

You work out what the key pieces are and deliver them to us with clarity, precision and brevity. 

You cut to the chase, get to the point, and bring things together so we can move things along. 

Your way of distilling and reducing, integrating without losing meaning and holding the important bits together is needed. 

In all of the information, you find a way through so we can follow. 

And then together we can decide and act, putting ideas into practice. 

To the synthesisers who comb through complexity and are able to bring a lot of information together in one piece, thank you. 

Please keep doing what you do. 

Look around and listen out for the synthesisers who help bring disparate pieces of information together, help build understanding and help make collaboration easier ... thank you. 

Know a great synthesiser? Get in contact with them and say thank you. 

A small task can take up a lot of space

It may not take very long to complete when it comes to doing it, but there is often one task on our list that becomes a blocker in our productivity flow. 

It could be the task you don’t want to do, the task that seems fiddly or complex, or the task you are dreading. 

And disproportionately, we spend so much time thinking about it, worrying, rehearsing and analyzing or imagining it. 

This task occupies too much of our precious cognitive load and mental bandwidth... and life!

Many other actions and tasks get polluted by that one blockage. It may not be connected or part of the same project but it blocks progress all the same. 

When we decide to start or work on and complete this task, things become easier. 

Some pressure is relieved, and we can begin to flow with our productivity again. 

So how about it? Start it, tackle it, finish it ... a weight gets lifted, the load and pressure is released. 

Is there something on your list that matches “that kind of task” - the one task ... that takes up so much of our thinking? Blocking better progress? 

Could you do it today? 

Making sense and meaning

There is sensemaking and there is meaning making. 

When things happen we have the opportunity to look at them, talk about them and make sense of them. 

As we do that, we thread our own meaning into those events. Our own lens or perspective. 

Through sensemaking we may well understand what’s going on. But it’s not until we make meaning of it that it really ... you know ... means something to us. 

It’s possibly why businesses the world over may struggle with change. Some things just don’t make any sense ... so what could that possibly mean? 

> Sensemaking is great for insight, strategy and decision making. 
> Meaning making is wonderful for connection, engagement and trust. 

Film makers and story tellers do both so well, building up complex layers of sense and meaning, building tension and intrigue, teasing the mind and then ... touching the heart. 

It makes sense AND it means something. 

Help people make sense, sure. 

Then leave it with them to settle or ‘marinate’ allowing them time to make meaning. 

And then ... listen to their meaning. 

Little steps or a big step

Big? Ok, so we’ve seen how big change can be done! A global swathe of prescription and pressure to conform to new rules and restrictions. 

Big sweeping change. Wow. Shocked and shaken. Reverberation and big ripples with effects felt far into the future. 


But remember how change can also be done, bit by bit, step by step. 

Even a smaller half-step by half-step. 

We can become overwhelmed by the bigness of things, believing we ’should’ conquer it all in one hit or adapt immediately or cope with it all or get it done because of ... you know, reasons. 

These expectations are often unnecessary. 

Just take the next little step. You could even bring someone else along with you, showing them the next little step too. 

There’s some leadership right there in being able to break the big and daunting stuff down into the smaller executable parts. 

It’s not basic or trivial. 
It’s highly practical, empathetic and caring. 


Take it and break it down. 

Get started on something, take another step on it, and while you’re at it, show someone else the next little step. 

Size isn’t important here.