5 Communications Lessons I’ve Learned from My Students

On a recent Friday evening, I was riding the subway home when I ran into one of my graduate students from last semester. We caught up on his experiences as this new semester starts (lots of reading, lots of work) and his takeaways from the previous two semesters. For me, as a relatively new instructor, it’s always interesting and worthwhile to hear from my students because–while it’s a cliché, it’s a true one–I learn so much from them.

So today, I want to share 5 lessons I’ve learned from my students.

Order Matters

As we in communications discuss quite often, context matters, and when it comes to conveying important information, order matters especially. In teaching my course, I found myself constantly making revisions to my curriculum (for the next year) to restructure and strengthen the connections between each unit.

Similarly, in business presentations, I’ve found that it’s worthwhile to put together your deck, present it out loud to yourself (recording it on your phone and playing it back makes a big difference!), and then make revisions to the structure. You’ll find that as you say things out loud, you’ll identify points that need to be moved around in order to make the maximum impact. Take a little extra time, and you’ll find that your audience will understand and absorb more.

Repeat, Repeat, Repeat

When you’re presenting to an audience, it’s important to use verbal “sign-posts”. In other words, indicate how each new piece of information fits into the overall journey of your story or presentation and use key phrases again and again.

Just as you’ll find that great comedians will come back to the same punch line/phrase throughout a set, with each repetition becoming funnier, each repetition of a key phrase will become more familiar. That familiar phrase allows the audience to identify themselves as insiders who get the joke (or the lesson).

If in Doubt, Spell It Out

I’ve been to many a business seminar or presentation, in which the presenter takes for granted how much the audience understands and spends the entire time speaking in acronyms. In most cases, people in the audience won’t speak up and ask what those acronyms are (à la Emperor’s New Clothes) and instead use context clues to piece together what the terminology means as best they can. Unfortunately, there are many situations where that’s not good enough, and the audience (whom the presenter is trying to convey information to) misses out.

Luckily, my students were mostly comfortable with asking when they didn’t recognize a term, but teaching my class also reminded me that you don’t always know the level of knowledge of your audience, so don’t take it for granted.

Unless the phrase is extremely common (like ROI), feel free to just say the phrase and then the acronym the first time, just in case.

Hold Yourself to the Standards You’d Want Others to Be Held to

I got the impression that some of my students found me to be a hard grader, but the truth is that I didn’t grade them any differently than I would have wanted to be graded in my own graduate program at Columbia.

It might not make you popular, but holding people to high standards means that you’ll push them to stretch beyond their comfort zone, and in the end present better work. Don’t be afraid to be criticized by those who might feel less willing to stretch–for every one of them, there will be five people who truly do their best work because they are expanding their repertoire.

Invite in Outside Opinions

When you’re the professor, the expectation is that you are the absolute expert. While that’s a gratifying feeling, it doesn’t really help your students who will encounter dozens if not hundreds of differing opinions on your area of expertise throughout their careers. Be proactive about bringing in experts from a wide variety of backgrounds to share their experiences, because there are many different ways to solve problems and do great work.

Not only will you be strengthening your team’s or audience’s learnings, but you’ll also be elevating your own standing as someone who is open to outside opinions and willing to be challenged.

Do you have any communications lessons you want to share? Please leave a comment below!