"There will be no school on Thursday". How to cut through the unimportant and say what really matters.

Hi friends - I'm recovering well from surgery. Here's my most popular post to date, in case you haven't seen it. Best wishes to you. AL

#Expertise #TheArtAndScienceOfExpertise #Journalism #Following

Nora Ephron scripted three films nominated for Academy Awards (including When Harry Met Sally).

Her biggest talent though was her ability to see and convey the point.

In other words, to understand why something matters.

The woman had great salience receptors.

What made that possible was that before she was a screenwriter, Ephron was a journalist.

When a student at Beverly Hills High School she took Charlie O. Simms’ Journalism 101 course.

Charlie started out by teaching his class how to write the short introduction to a news story, known as the “news lead”. The lead gives some facts and sets the scene.

As an exercise, Charlie gave the class the following facts.

(Feel free to take a moment to try this exercise yourself.)

Kenneth L. Peters, the principal of Beverly Hills High school, announced today that the entire high school faculty will travel to Sacramento next Thursday for a colloquium in new teaching methods. Among the speakers will be anthropologist Margaret Mead, college president Dr. Robert Menard Hutchins, and California governor Edmond Pat Brown.

He asked the class to write up the lead.

(If you’re trying the exercise, don‘t read on, unless you’re ready for the spoiler :)

Here’s some of the lead ideas they came up with.

• Margaret Mead, Maynard Hutchins, and Governor Brown will address the faculty on…
• Next Thursday, the high school faculty will…
• Etc…

Charlie Sims wasn’t impressed with any of their leads. He handed them a teaching moment Ephron would never forget.

His lead was -

“There will be no school Thursday.“

Efron later wrote:

“In that instance I realized that journalism was not just about regurgitating the facts but about figuring out the point. It wasn’t enough to know the who, what, when, and where; you had to understand what it meant. And why it mattered.“

There’s a lot for us to learn here.

“He taught me something that works just as well in life as it does in journalism.“

Simms showed Ephron how to develop the ability to cut through what’s unimportant.

Did the students care about the names of the famous people who would be talking to their teachers at a conference? Of course not.

What really meant something to them was the upcoming day off school that got lost in the details.

Next time you’re in the thick of things and minutiae are flying by at warp speed, take a moment to step back and ask yourself -

What really matters here? What's the point?

It’s something journalists are trained to do. They sharpen this tool at work and they take it into their private lives as well.

It’s a reflex that can be acquired and honed.

Here are some questions you could ask yourself.

• Is there a hidden transaction lurking unnoticed?
• Is there something I am taking for granted
• What am I assuming?
• What am I being blinded by?
• Where is the current edge of my map?
• And what is the bigger territory that I need to acknowledge?

I suspect that when we can find more of such questions for ourselves and find answers to them, we’ll be able to ward off mistakes, misunderstandings and wrong turns.

We’ll glimpse where others are enmeshed.

And we will tune in better and anticipate how to meet them half way (or better).

And more - we will deliver that key statement, kernel of truth, or a summation that knocks the ball out of the park.

Show your expertise at key moments. Be the one to tell them they have a day off on Thursday.

When you do, your influence and following will keep growing.

Source: Nora Ephron “The Best Journalism Teacher I Ever Had, Northwest Scholastic Press, June 18, 2013.

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