Sometimes, people passing me during a run will call out a polite, “On your left,” before they go by.
Smart word choice, right? Just enough words to help me understand what’s about to happen next, phrased to eliminate confusion.
Imagine the chaos if the speaker said the opposite, “On my right,” in this situation.
Mid-run, I don’t think I’d have any way to decipher that message. “On whose right? Who’s this guy talking to? Where is he?” I’d have to slow down, glance over both shoulders, probably ask some kind of question to achieve clarity, take an earbud out to hear the response, fumble with my shit and lose focus.
The audience doesn’t care who the speaker is and what’s on their right and where they’re going. It would be a statement entirely unfocused on the audience, their perspective, and what they need. No runner in their right mind would say, “On my right,” to a runner they’re about to pass.
But Public Affairs Officers do it all the time, don’t we?
Statements, interviews, query responses, tweets … it’s easy to build them solely from our organization’s perspective and need. We write these things to be about us: what we know and what we would like someone else to know (and do).
And when we do this, our audience fumbles with their shit and loses focus.
Let’s shift our perspective. Next time, tell your audience what’s coming up on their left … not our right.
(Photo by 1st Lt. Verniccia Ford, DVIDS)
