Introduction
Have you ever walked away from a conversation thinking, “That sounded way better in my head”? Well, you’re not alone.
Knowing what you want to say, and saying it well are two very different skills. An often-overlooked aspect of effective communication is verbal planning – the ability to prepare and structure a message before and during speech. Strong verbal planning relies on several executive functions that help us organize our thoughts, plan our message, adapt to our audience, stay on topic, and filter out information that may be irrelevant or unhelpful (Obermeyer et al., 2020). When these skills are working well, communication is clear, concise and easy to follow.
Three key executive function skills involved in verbal planning are:
- Selection: Deciding which information is relevant and important and which to leave out
- Organization: Arranging ideas in a meaningful and logical way
- Sequencing: Sharing information in an order that best supports understanding
When these processes break down, communicating can become much more challenging. You may have difficulty expressing your ideas clearly, getting to the point, speaking confidently or connecting effectively with others.
Characteristics of Poor Verbal Planning
Poor verbal planning can affect anyone, regardless of experience, intelligence, neurodivergence or education level (Key-DeLyria & Altmann, 2016). Common signs include:
- Rambling or being overly verbose – using more words than you need to get to your point
- Losing the main idea or train of thought
- Repeating yourself
- Including unrelated or unnecessary information
- Struggling to express your thought clearly, despite knowing exactly what you want to say
- Providing too much or too little context
- Not directly answering the question asked
- Feeling your thoughts move too fast and you can’t keep up
- Communicating only part of your message
- Jumping between stories, topics, or ideas
- Abruptly changing topics
- Burying the key message under excessive background information
- Difficulty summarizing information
- Taking a long time to get to your point
- Frequent use of fillers (“ya know”, “right?”, “um”, “like”)
- Over-explaining simple concepts
- Difficulty answering open-ended and spontaneous questions
- Performing significantly better in writing, or during presentations your prepared for
These communication characteristics can make it more difficult for others to understand your message and follow your reasoning. It may also affect how others perceive your knowledge, competence, and confidence, particularly in workplace settings where clear and efficient communication is highly valued.
Verbal Planning Skills
Selecting
Effective selection involves identifying the most important information, taking the listener’s needs and knowledge into account, and intentionally choosing what to say and what to leave out. To help you select what to say, you can ask yourself these two questions:
- What does this person need to know?
- What is the purpose of my message?
Below are examples of effective and non-effective selections:
Effective Selections:
- Leading with the main idea so the listener immediately understands the message
- Choosing responses that align with the conversation goal
- Providing the conclusion first, followed by supporting details
- Selecting the most relevant example rather than multiple similar ones
- Staying on-topic while briefly acknowledging alternative ideas
Examples:
- “Yes, I recommend we move forward with that hire. (Then provide rationale)
- “I have a couple of thoughts about this, but the most important point is…”
- If your co-worker shared that they’re overwhelmed: “There’s a lot of tasks on the go right now, what part is feeling unmanageable?
- If a friend comments on enjoying the rain the last few days: “It will definitely give some life to the grass. The sun tomorrow should really set things in motion”
Non-effective Selections:
- Failing to identify your main message BEFORE speaking
- Including excessive background detail
- Adding irrelevant or tangential information
- Providing more information than was requested
- Using personal context instead of task-relevant information
- Overloading simple questions with unnecessary detail
Examples:
- “So this morning I woke up late because I didn’t set my alarm and also didn’t sleep well. I had to rush to get ready and make breakfast and do my makeup and feed the cat then on my way out the door I saw a message that my appointment was cancelled.”
- “When asked if the report is ready: “I worked on it for 15 hours, then made sure to check spelling and the margins and even double spaced it. I printed it in black and put the folder on your desk, oh I also wrote the name on the folder.”
- “I was working on this report this morning and last night and once I finished the introduction I started planning the main body paragraphs but the sun was beaming in and I couldn’t focus so yeah I did end up catching that show at 7pm”
Comparing Non-effective vs. Effective Selections
- Instead of: “So this morning I was reviewing the file and then…”
- Try: “I found an error in the report that needs to be corrected.”
- Instead of: “I have to change the colour, then the font and set up transitions so I think I have enough time to get it to you by Thursday”
- Try: “The deck is on schedule and will be completed by Thursday.”
- Instead of: “I was reviewing the feedback and saw a few different comments about the navigation and usability and some people found it confusing and others said they liked it but the font was too small and when I looked at it again, I noticed some other issues.”
- Try: “The feedback identified several usability concerns, particularly related to navigation and formatting.”
Effective selection is the ability to say precisely enough. It reduces the load on the listener by communicating in a clear, concise and listener-focused way.
Organizing
If selection is about choosing what information to say, organization is deciding how that information should be arranged. Even if you chose the ‘right’ words, if it’s presented in a confusing order – the message will likely be difficult to follow.
This step focuses on how your ideas relate to one another and how to communicate their relationship. Organization involves:
Grouping Ideas
Related concepts should be clustered, not said sporadically
Examples:
Poor Organization: “The stakeholder made some edits on the document. We’re still waiting on community feedback. Marketing has started preparing social media ads. There were some concerns about the colours of the website. The launch date is June 20th.”
Better Organization: “The project remains on track for launch on June 20th. Key updates include completed stakeholder edits to the document, early preparation of marketing materials, and outstanding community feedback. There are also minor concerns regarding website colour selection that may require follow-up prior to launch.”
Poor Organization: “The client called this morning. We noticed the issue last week. IT is investigating. There may be a delay in implementation. The team has been asking for updates.”
Better Organization: “We’re currently experiencing an issue that may delay implementation. The problem was identified last week and is being investigated by IT. We informed the client this morning and will continue providing updates to the team as more information becomes available.”
Establishing Relationship Between Ideas:
Your listener should understand how your ideas connect, which may be by:
- Cause and effect
- Comparison and contrast
- Priority or importance
- General idea and supporting detail
- Chronological order
Examples:
Poor Organization: “Public participation improved. We reduced the age limit”
Well-organized: “Public participation improved after we reduced the age limit”
Creating Clear Structure
We as speakers like consistency, this helps the listener anticipate where the message is going
Examples:
Problem → Cause → Solution
“Spider infestations have increased due to the warmer weather. To address this we have hired a company to spray deterrents along the building.”
Main Point → Supporting Detail
“I recommend staying at this Villa for these two reasons…”
Question → Answer → Rationale
“Yes, I agree with that idea. Here’s why.”
Organization reduces the cognitive load but on your listener. It allows them to focus on the overall message, retain more of what they hear, feel more confident in the message heard and follow complex explanations more easily.
Sequencing
Sequencing is the ability to present information in a logical, listener-friendly order. This way, meaning can be built progressively. It answers the question, “In what order should I say this so it makes the most sense for my listener?”.
Effective Sequencing
- Start with the main point to ensure the listener understands the purpose immediately
“ The delivery will be delayed by three days due to weather” - Chronological Order (when relevant)
“We identified the issue last week, escalated it to HR on Tuesday and received an update this morning”
- General → Specific
“There are two main concerns. First is the budget. Second is timing”
- Cause → Effect
“ Because the weather is so bad, we don’t have as many staff here” - Problem → Solution
“ We are expecting delays in launching the product. To address this, we’ve offered discount codes to the buyers” - Prioritize the Most Important
“The most urgent issue is client satisfaction, followed by scheduling adjustments”
Tips To Support Verbal Organization
- Visualize the main idea
- Before speaking, form a clear mental image (words, phrase or visual concept). Visualization can support attention, working memory, and overall message clarity.
- Identify key words before speaking
- Select 1-3 key words that represent your intended message. This can help you stay on topic and reduce unnecessary detail.
- Use a framework
- Ask yourself “What does the listener need to know” and “What is the message I want to get across?” These questions will help prioritize the right information and reduce tangential and verbose speech.
- Think in bullet points, not full sentences
- Organize thoughts as short, structured ideas and not full scripts. This can help maintain attention, flow and flexibility.
- Choose a framework from the ‘organization’ and ‘sequence’ sections that makes sense for the content and context and stick with it.
- Start with your headline. This can help you maintain the topic and support the listeners’ understanding from the start.
- Pause before responding. Give yourself as little as 2-3 seconds of silence to allow time for organization. Pausing is an executive communication skill – optimize on it.
- Limit yourself to 2-3 points. Trust that if your listener wants more information, they will ask.
- Match your detailed amount to the listener. To some degree we automatically take on our communication partner’s characteristics – known as mirroring. Assimilating to how the other speaker communicates has been found to demonstrate trust, active listening and acceptance.
- End with a takeaway. If you’re speaking for 2-3 minutes, you don’t often need a summary statement but you could always benefit from a ‘takeaway message’
- “ The key takeaway is that my communication is improving and I will be continuing sessions with the S-LP”
Conclusion
In most cases, communication difficulties have less to do with what you know and more to do with how efficiently you can select, organize, and sequence information in a way that’s easy for others to follow and understand.
References
- Key-DeLyria, S. E., & Altmann, L. J. P. (2016). Executive function and ambiguous sentence comprehension. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 25(2), 252–267. https://doi.org/10.1044/2015_AJSLP-14-0111
- Obermeyer, J., Schlesinger, J., & Martin, N. (2020). Evaluating the contribution of executive functions to language tasks in cognitively demanding contexts. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 29(1S), 463–473. https://doi.org/10.1044/2019_AJSLP-CAC48-18-0216
