Writing brain and speaking brain verbalize differently for me, I have found. I’m considered a passable conference speaker, and, from friendly conversations to client meetings, I’m rarely at a loss for words. But the ideas I’m able to articulate with my mouth are nothing, absolutely nothing, to those I can sometimes share while writing.
In writing I have clarity of vision and authority of tone that I almost completely lack when speaking with more than one person at a time. This is why I often find meetings stressful and frustrating.
Now, meetings are essential to design and business. And they’re great for listening and learning. But when I have a strong point of view to put across, or when am trying to align folks around an important rallying point, conversation with more than one person just doesn’t cut it for me.
Rooms hurt.
The more of my businesses and projects I can wrap around written communication, the more optimistic I am that those businesses and projects will grow in meaning, deepening their connection to people and serving them better and better. And the more the business of running a business relies on person-to-person talk, the tougher it gets for me to be sure things are progressing toward clear and meaningful goals.
I sense that probably many designers feel this way.
Oddly, I probably don’t come across as one of these designers, because I do okay in a meeting. I’m not the cliched tongue-tied designer in the corner. My relative articulateness as a designer has been a cornerstone of my success, such as it is. In meetings I may even speak too much. Not from lack of interest in what others have to say, but out of fear that an idea not expressed will be lost. This anxiety that drives me to verbalize probably makes me appear confident. Maybe even over-confident.
But my seeming ease in meetings is nothing to the comfort, clarity, and articulateness I feel when alone at a keyboard.
I speak for myself now. This is just me. This is not a law of design or business. Not a rule. Not a lesson. For some folks—including some of my smartest and most productive collaborators—the hack of emitting sounds through flapping jaws is how the best ideas are birthed. And more power to them.
Learning to be okay with their process is part of my challenge as a worker and person. It’s a challenge because it’s a surrender of control as well as confidence. We are all here to share something. In writing, I know what I must say and how to say it. In a room, I’m a person struggling to focus, my monkey mind sabotaging me as it tries to claw its way out of the room.
I would not have figured this out about myself if I didn’t have a gifted child who is also ADHD and dyslexic, calling my attention to how completely differently different individuals can process written and spoken English, and making me realize that, like my daughter’s, my brain is also more comfortable in some verbal environments than others.
I acknowledge that part of what makes written communication work for me is the solitude. Perhaps I’m more narcissistic than I hope. Or maybe it’s just that silence is the place where I can hear whatever it is that I’m meant to share.
