micro-move: replace adverbs with single digit numbers
part of a nerdy series on grammar and punctuation
Always, never, insanely, incredibly, extremely. A string of “very”s.
Adverbs are emotional dials that only turn to the right. They jack up the intensity of a statement. Or (meta!) they draw a picture of the speaker’s flagrant desire to jack up the intensity of a statement.
Adverbs quickly diminish their own returns. If you say “extremely” more than once in situations that are not, in fact, extreme, you lose credibility or stress your people out or both.
The further out the audience is from first-hand encounter with the facts, the less useful the adverbs are. The greater the audience’s distance from the facts, the greater the speaker’s fear that that audience won’t understand or take the facts seriously. The likelier it is that a speaker resorts to adverbs. Oh no.
Adverbs might motivate your front line people and conjure an accurate picture of the situation for them. They have enough reps to do mental math or summon a plausible image in place of the adverb. The adverb prompts them to size up and see.
However - your board, a partner organization with a different mission, a new customer, a community member - your adverbs are likely to lead them astray. They will draw attention to your emotional reaction to the facts rather than to the facts themselves. They will generate inaccurate mental math and images.
In most cases, you want your people reckoning with facts and managing their own feelings about them rather than reckoning with your feelings and finding facts that moderate them.
So, at best, your adverbs distract the folks you want to mobilize and persuade. At worst, with reliance on adverbs, you practice a form of violent communication. Even with good intentions, you plead and bully when you could teach and learn.
To avoid all of this, I have found it helpful to replace adverbs with single digit numbers.
Instead of: “This problem is insanely complex!”
Try: “My best guess is this problem has 5 layers.”
The first statement is a crude painting of panic. The implicit statement is: “I am stressed!” The second one is an invitation to discuss, diagnose, and remedy. The implicit question is: “What’s your take?”
Instead of: “The team has been working incredibly hard.”
Try: “The average person has put in double-shifts on the weekend for the last 3 weeks.”
Instead of: “I am extremely annoyed.”
Try: “This has happened 3 times in the last week. I needed 15 minutes to walk around the office before I could talk about it calmly.”
These single-digit estimates can make it easier to pursue a “what is so | so what?” conversation. You start with facts then move to stories about those facts and plans for what we do about them.
-Eric
