Precision — Saying It in Fewer, Better Words

Chapter 3.1

The Sentence That Says Nothing

Read this sentence: "So basically, what we're kind of trying to do here is sort of streamline the process a bit, if that makes sense."

Now read this one: "We're cutting the approval step out of the process."

Same idea. One of them you'd forget by the next sentence. The other one you'd repeat back correctly a week later.

The first version isn't wrong, exactly — every word in it is doing something. "Basically" signals you're simplifying. "Kind of" and "sort of" soften the claim so it feels less risky to say. "If that makes sense" invites reassurance. None of these words are lies. They're just insurance — small hedges you add so that if you're wrong, you were never quite fully committed to being right.

The cost of that insurance is that the listener has to dig through it to find out what you actually meant, and most people won't bother digging. They'll just remember that you said something about streamlining, probably, maybe.

Chapter 3.2

Where the Hedge Words Hide

You already know the obvious filler — "um," "like," "you know." Those get caught. The ones that survive are quieter, because they sound like normal speech:

• Softeners — "kind of," "sort of," "a little bit," "somewhat." Each one takes a clear claim and blurs its edges.
• Permission-seekers — "if that makes sense," "does that make sense," "I think," "I feel like." Small requests for reassurance that quietly hand your certainty over to the listener.
• Throat-clearers — "so basically," "to be honest," "at the end of the day." Nothing wrong with any of them once. Said before every sentence, they become the sound of you warming up instead of arriving.
• Padding pairs — saying the same idea twice in slightly different words because you're not sure the first version landed. "We need to move fast, we need to act quickly on this" — pick one.

None of these are moral failures. They're mostly nerves, translated into speech. But the listener doesn't hear your nerves — they hear the words, and the words are quietly asking them to do more work for the same amount of meaning.

Chapter 3.3

The One-Breath Test

Here's a fast way to catch imprecision before it leaves your mouth: could you say the core of your point in one breath, without a hedge word in it?

Try it on something you actually need to say this week. Say the plain version out loud, no "kind of," no "I think," no "does that make sense" tacked on the end. It will feel more exposed than the hedged version — that's the whole point. A hedge is armor. Precision means taking the armor off and trusting the sentence to stand on its own.

Chapter 3.4

Concrete Beats Abstract, Every Time

"We had some challenges with alignment" tells the listener almost nothing.

"Marketing and sales had different launch dates in their heads, so we lost two weeks reconciling them" tells them exactly what happened — and, without you needing to say so, signals that you understand the problem specifically enough to have actually solved it.

Abstract language feels safer because it commits to less. But it also gives the listener nothing to hold onto, which is exactly why forgettable answers are almost always abstract ones.

The fix isn't more words — often it's fewer, just more specific ones. A number, a name, a concrete moment does more work than three sentences of general description.

Chapter 3.5

Precision Under Pressure

All of this gets harder the moment there's pressure in the room — a tough question, a senior person watching, a decision you're not fully sure about. Under pressure, hedge words multiply, because they feel like protection. If you're vague, you can't be pinned down as wrong.

But this is backwards from how it actually reads. A precise, wrong-but-correctable answer reads as someone who thinks clearly. A vague, technically-safe answer reads as someone who's not sure, or worse, someone hiding behind the vagueness on purpose.