Grice’s maxims are the difference between boring small talk and electrifying conversation.
Want to know with confidence that your elevator pitch will land? Would clarity and persuasion help you attract more clients, investors, mentorsΒ and sales? To maximize success in conversation, ensure you are following Griceβs maxims.
Twentieth-century British philosopher Paul Grice shifted the way we think about semantics and language. His maxims for conversation are part of his work on the cooperative principle, which states that when people engage with one another there are unspoken assumptions around how the conversation will unfold. Research tells us that we grasp the nuances of Griceβs maxims from an early age;Β a 2015 study foundΒ that children as young as sixΒ years old could distinguish the presence or absence of all of the maxims when listening to someone speak.
Translation: When decision-makers listen to you, they are already filtering your words through these four maxims, and if you step out-of-bounds on one or more of them, youβll have a hard time winning over your listener. Clarity is critical, particularly in high-stakes conversations like an investor pitch, and you donβt want all your hard work to go down the drain because your vision is too difficult to follow when you talk about it.
Letβs dig into each of Griceβs four maxims in more detail and learn how you can use them to capture anyoneβs attention on command.
1. Say what is needed and nothing more
TheΒ maxim of quantityΒ states that excess information will ultimately clutter your story or position. Ever check out of a conversation because the person talking keeps going off on tangents? Gatekeepers will do the same to you if you overstuff them with detail; give me whatever context I need to really understand the situation and nothing more.
This is why you should be sharpening your elevator pitch all the time. A pitch forces you to blend storytelling with value and land your point in a succinct way. In my work assisting entrepreneurs with messaging, the elevator pitch is often the most challenging type of communication for a professional because it requires restraint and precision.
A good rule of thumb for editing is to ask yourself βSo what?β at the end of each sentence or story detail. If your language doesnβt actually propel your message forward, leave it out.
2. Back up what you say
If your listener has to spend precious moments wondering whether the words you speak are true, their attention is being diverted from your message. GriceβsΒ maxim of qualityΒ has two components: Tell the truth, and back up what you say with evidence, preferably scientific in nature.
In a world of misinformation and content overload, science, statisticsΒ and other proven examples can help you reinforce a position. But as data editor Mona Chalabi mentionedΒ in a 2018 NPR interview, listeners can actually feel alienated by statistics if they donβt have sufficient context.
According to this maxim, the natural disposition of a listener is to corroborate your argument in some way; anticipate this skepticism and youβll do a better job holding someoneβs rapt attention.
3. Keep it relevant
Gary Vaynerchuk points out that while βcontent is king,βΒ context is God. Itβs true; you can barrage your listener with anecdotes or tangents, but will sleek catchphrases and one-liners really add to your conversation or argument in the long run?
Griceβs maxim of relevance states that the most potent pitches, speechesΒ and arguments are those whose subject matter is highly relevant. Companies have already picked up on these consumer semantics and adjusted accordingly, which is why customization was the No. 1Β marketing trend for the second year in a row this year. (And what could be more relevant to someone than having a product with their own name on it? This is what madeΒ Coca-Colaβs recent customization campaignΒ wildly successful.)
4.Β Stay organized as you speak
Griceβs final maxim asks us to βbe perspicuous,β which means to be clear and easy to understand. This maxim refers more to your actual word choices; the more muddled your language, the harder it becomes to follow you.
Run your next personal anecdote through these four sub-maxims to ensure youβll be memorable:
- Avoid obscure expressions. A fancy vocabulary might make you more descriptive and feel smarter, but flowery language actually sets you back when it comes to keeping someoneβs attention. Also, keep industry jargon to a minimum.
- Avoid ambiguity. Who is your target audience? Tailor your conversational details to whomever is listening. The riches are in the niches.
- Keep it brief. Grice refers to this sub-maxim as prolixity, which is a fancy way to remind you to keep it short and to the point. Details create vividness, but if thereβs a way to deliver all the information needed in fewer total words, err on the side of brevity.
- Stay orderly. When I help entrepreneurs write faster, we spend a lot of time focusing on outlines in order to work out logic and flow. The same applies for speaking. As soon as your listenerβs brain has to overthink or work harder, their emotional brain gets overtaken by other parts of the brain responsible for information processing. We want to keep listeners in their emotional brain for as long as possible, because people act and buy on emotion. Flow and order actually create more emotion for your listeners, not less.
The good news is that most people are wired to listen and filter for these maxims automatically. Stay in bounds, keep your message clear and to the point, and youβll have everything you need to captivate listeners the next time you have an important audience.