Welcome to the podcast just saying, my
name is Joe McCormick. I'm your host. In this week's episode, we're gonna talk about why
there's no room for silence. If you knew the podcast, I'm
really happy that you're here. We are all about trying to help you
become an intentional communicator. If you've been here before, welcome
back. Please help us spread the word. Um, as the author of the
book, brief and Noise, I've made it my mission
here to help you in two very specific ways, which is in concise
communication and clear thinking. The value of how you communicate
and the quality of your quiet to help you think about it,
realizing that it's difficult, it's challenging for anybody
to rise to the occasion, to rise to the level of
being an elite communicator. Why is the whole point of this
podcast, how do you fix that? How do you address it is challenging for
most people because the environment we work in and we live in is noisy. There are a lot of things
competing for your attention. The fact that you're listening to this
right now means that you recognize it's difficulty, because if you're
easy, you'd already be doing it. And you also recognize the
importance of it. And I, and I, and I recognize that I'm humbled
to lead this conversation with you, to help you, you know, rise
above and make an impact. So in thinking about
this particular episode, I'm spending more and more time thinking
about the environments that we work in and how challenging and difficult
and noisy and distracting they may be. And there was a recent business trip
that kind of really a couple of things happened to me that kind of, I want to
share them with you around the room. You know, why there's, there's
no room for silence. Um, before I dive into those two anecdotes, which I think are pretty
telling on this trip, I just want to say that when you
think about the need for quiet, you'll get to a yes pretty quickly.
Like, I need it, I just need it. But I also want you to realize that
the urge to talk is strong. Now, some of you might be introverts and
think, well, that's actually not true. I'm talking collectively like we live
in a collaborative world where everybody collaborates. And if you're not on
board, you're not on board. So the, when I'm talking about the urge to
talk, I mean the urge to communicate, whether it's sending a slack
message or a text message, or getting on a video
conference or a Zoom call, or being in a meeting and sending another
email and having another conversation and a drive by, and I'm like,
that's our business day. That's what it looks like. And these pockets of quiet and silence are rare, if any, during the workday. And one of the things I've been telling
people a lot recently is when you step foot into that environment, it's game on until you leave.
And then it's game off. But it's still not off because you're
still being communicated to and you're still communicating while you're
heading home. And the workday, when that starts and when that
ends, that's even being questioned. Like people's autonomy to like, when
do I stop? When do I start? Well, if your first thing in the morning is
grabbing your phone and the last thing before you go to sleep is checking your
phone and you're shooting off another note and whatever, you're just, you're making that moment
of noise bigger and you're your workday now is going
into your personal life. So where is the pocket of silence?
Can I just unplug and go off the grid? That's not the point either, but
where is the room for silence? So here's, you know, what I want to share with you are
sort of two big moments for me. Um, I was on a business trip to Europe
and I took some of that time my wife and I to, to connect connecting
through cities. So we were, we hit London on the way, and then we hit Rome before
we got to our destination over weekends and went
up. So in doing that, it gave me an opportunity to
stop in London. All right, so London's a great city. It's
amazing. And I've talked about this, um, in previous podcasts, I believe about Winston Churchill
and about this memo that he wrote in 1940 in August of 1940. And
it's entitled, brevity In. You can search on the podcast for that. You can also just Google it, just
look in Churchill brevity memo. And what's really interesting
about this memo is, you know, in the context of this whole thing,
he's leading a, you know, a war effort. And he writes this memo and he says, to
do our jobs, there's way too much paper, way too much information,
and it wastes a ton of time. So he starts to push back on
all of this information excess, which is fascinating because
if it were like that in 1940, imagine what it's like today. And he pushes back and he tells
his war department brevity is what matters. So he, he
just, he says, we can't, we can't do our work with
consuming this much information. It's way too much. So he outlines
four things to do differently. And really it would, it's like, you know, back to the future kind of thing where
he's talking about what I'm talking about, which is like, you can't not only don't have enough time
to communicate all the stuff that you need to communicate, it doesn't even
make that much sense. And we, it, we can't think clearly. So his
payoff of this memo is yes, it's gonna save us time
and energy for sure, but it's gonna lead to clear
thinking. So that's the memo. So I've been fascinated with
Churchill and as a side note, recommend to people that they
watch two movies and read a book. And the two movies are in
order, kind of Dun Kirk first, the darkest hour second, and then read
the book, the Splendid and the Vial. And that kind of paints the picture of
the environment that Churchill is leading in. I've got, you know, on the side kind of a high interest
in him as a leader and how he led. And you know, obviously being able to write a memo like
that starts to open up insights to him as a leader in, in all the
challenges that he faced, which were pretty daunting
to put it lightly. So I'm in London with my wife and
I've been told by some friends like, you gotta visit the Churchill War
rooms, you know, so it's, you know, downtown London, near Buckingham
Palace, near Westin Abbey, sort of right in the, the thick of it
all, you find the Church of War room. So during the war, the war department went underground and
they basically built this labyrinth of offices and it's kinda like
a bunker. It's, you know, it's underground and it's where they met
and the, they had a map room and well, that's all been restored and it's
fascinating. So you go into this thing, it's a bit little bit claustrophobic, but, but you kind of walk down in this world
of like where they ate and where they slept and where they planned. And
while the, by London's being bombed. And it's just fascinating historically,
it's absolutely brilliant. Cause you're putting all these pieces
together of all these rooms and you're walking through history and how this
whole thing was being managed and where it was being managed. And you could just imagine like he's
writing this memo and brevity like the level of collaboration and information
and intelligence that's coming in, and he's gotta make decisions.
And there's meetings and you know, it's just like when you watch those
two movies, when you read the book, you get a really deeper insight into
that environment of how intense it is and how little people slapped. And, and then I turn a corner and
I see this office and it's got a little very simple
desk lamp and a chair, and above the, the,
the door, it just says, quiet please. And it just made me think in doing
a little bit of reading about that, that apparently, and it, and above
that even it says Prime Minister, and it says, quiet please. So it says
office or an office that he used, but it's a prime minister.
And quiet please, that he would take naps on a
one hour nap and he would like, have quiet time in the afternoon.
And he would, it was sort of, everybody needed to be
quiet for that hour, and it was time to rest and to think.
And, but he put above the door, quiet please. And he called it out like, I can't do my job unless I have this. And he had a room for
it and a sign for it. So we're talking about here is about the
need for it, as nobody's gonna deny it, but would you be as bold as
to put a sign over your door or on your door hold,
let's say quiet please. Because you're gonna actually use that
time to think about the things that you need to do, to do what you need
to do, and how thoughtful, I mean, you, it's very easy. You can
imagine for him, just like you, it's very easy to get
caught up in the commotion, the cacophony and the energy and the
collaboration and just kind of lose your sense of time. And next thing you know,
it's five o'clock, it's, in his case, he would go to sleep at like one or two
o'clock in the morning and then wake up at eight, you know, and it's just like
he led this, this rhythm where you, you would, you wouldn't be able to
have any quiet forever or anything, but to do his job, he needed some
quiet and he put a side over the door. Wow. So that kind of struck me,
like, wow, he actually put it said, quiet please. Two words, pretty simple
and held people to it, you know, can we do that? That was
the first story in the trip. So later on end up in Rome,
going see Rome for a few days, and I'm not gonna talk about the whole
trip to Rome because it was fascinating, amazing. And it was, you know, I
had been there before, but you know, it was many years ago. And we had the opportunity of getting
a tour of the Vaticans, so St. Peter's Basil Cup and also the
Vatican Museums. Well, you know, the centerpiece of the the Vatican
Museums is the Sistine Chapel. So if you know anything
about this, Michelangelo was 33 years old. Michelangelo
was 33 years old when he was, when he painted this fresco on the
ceiling and took years to do it in how he did. It was just absolutely, and it was the Old Testament and the
judgment and the New Testament and creation, and it's just,
if you've never seen it, it's just worth looking at online. But it doesn't even do
justice to how beautiful, how elaborate this artwork is. That's on the ceiling in the kind
of side walls of the Sistine Chapel. So when I took, took this
tour, I had done this many, many years ago as a
actually like 18 years old. And I recall seeing it for the first time, and I was so saturated with culture and
art as an 18 year old that I kind of blew right through it. And I was kind
of like, when's lunch? I mean, I just, I remember distinctly like, my cup's
full, my sponge is completely saturated. I can't absorb another bit of
information or art history right now. I just want to, I just want to move
through and go on the next thing. And I, I re, I re I remember thinking, it's
Terri terrible for me to say this, but I, I don't even appreciate. I just
need to keep on moving along on the tour. So fast forward, I'm there and I, we have a tour guide and she is great.
So she sits down and she's like, all right, so here's the deal. We gotta, I'm gonna explain everything before you
walk in and here's what you're looking at and when you stand and you're gonna
be looking at this. And the other thing. And, and she really gave
us a prep course into like, what are we looking at and why,
and the significance, et cetera. And then she said, as we approach the
room, she's like, here's the thing. So we're gonna walk in the room and
there's quiet in this room and I'm gonna walk in with you and there's guards
and security guards and whatnot, and they're gonna enforce the
quiet. And when there's not quiet, they're gonna make
everybody know to be quiet, to appreciate this art history,
this magnificent achievement. And then I, she's like, I'll go to the back of the room and you
stay as long as you want and then when you're done, just find me. So
I'm like, got it. Game plans on. We're gonna walk into the Sistine
Chapel, we've been prepped, we're gonna see what we're gonna see. We're gonna appreciate what
we're gonna appreciate. We're gonna have eyes on this thing
and it's gonna be quiet. And I'm like, I'm writing a book on this noise.
I'm like, all right, this is quiet. We're doing this program. Wow, this is gonna be amazing to
experience this in a way that everybody around me is gonna be. And there's about a hundred people in
this room is pretty crowded. These tours, we get into the room and it's not
quiet. I'm not saying it was loud, but people were talking. And out of a hundred
people at any given time, 20 or 30 people are chattering. And then the guards say to be quiet and
then they don't. And then it's like, and then I'm trying to have this moment
where my wife and I were are trying to focus on this thing and I'm in
the back of my mind. I'm thinking, nobody's being quiet
and it's silent. And no, I say something to her about
them not talk, them talking. And it's like I'm talking
about them talking and it's
like, it's just like, ugh. And it's just made me think, when can we get people to just
stop talking for a moment? I mean, we are in the Sistine Chapel
and they're telling people not to talk. We're supposed to be enjoying
this moment that this beautiful achievement in studying it and
standing there in awe and people keep on talking in to one extent or
another, not focusing on it, not appreciating it, missing
it, and then moving on. And for me it became a kind of a metaphor
of what I'm trying to do with you, which is like this impulse to
communicate and to talk is strong. And to get a person to stop
doing it is really hard, . So don't get ourselves
even in the Cistine Chapel, it's darn near impossible. And
in the war rooms of church, he's gotta put a sign over the door
where it's darn near impossible. So food for thought, what I'm asking
you to do is super important. Yes. Is it hard? Absolutely. Okay. So here's what I want you to make
room for. Quiet, not for noise, just say.