5 words that deliver instant momentum
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I was the newest arrival to my infantry section.
A section is one of three teams in a platoon, and on my first field exercise my section commander was delivering his orders to us. Military orders are delivered in a specific format designed for clarity and depending on the exercise or operation, they can range from lengthy and intricate to relatively straightforward.
In that moment I was taking notes, anxious not to miss a detail that could lead to a mistake that in turn would reflect badly on my section commander and his boss.
When he finished, he looked at us and asked if there were any questions. Most of us were still scribbling. He waited. Then he fixed his eyes on me and said five words I'll never forget.
Play back what you heard.
I was petrified because the stakes felt enormous for a newcomer trying to earn his place.
I played it back and I missed some details. To my surprise (and relief), it wasn't met with a tirade. It was met with calm correction.
At the end of that session, and every time he delivered his orders, he closed the same way. Being clear now saves time and lives later.
Play back what you heard
Those five words drove two specific behaviours that stayed with me long after I left the military.
The first was attention. We knew we'd be asked, so we had to be completely present for the conversation. And because calm correction still stung a little, people raised their personal standard to take on information that mattered so we could do our jobs to the best of our training. That's where pride lives and excellence begin.
The second was capability. When our section commander wasn't in the room, any one of us could explain the job to be done with the right context. The net result was that comprehension hadn’t just improved, it compounded through the team.
A different question
I've been in more boardrooms and leadership off sites than I can count as both a CEO and an observer. I've watched CEOs prepare carefully worded messages, deliver them with clarity and conviction, watch people nod and take notes and then wonder why nothing changed downstream.
The question they ask themselves to diagnose the issue is usually some version of: What could I have said differently?
It's a fair question but it's not the right one.
The right question is: What standard for comprehension am I setting in this room?
Think about the last time you were delivering an important message to a room full of your people. After all the careful scripting and polishing the only tool you have left is hope. Hope that the message lands. The measure of success we often look for is a room that looks engaged. But looking engaged and being able to express what they just heard are very different things.
Five words close that gap.
Play back what you heard isn’t a test, it’s a standard and understand the nuance is important. A test is something people pass or fail whereas a standard is something people rise to. When you ask someone to play back what they heard, you're signalling that comprehension is expected, not assumed and that your time together has value and a measurable output.
The first time you do it, the room will notice.
The second time, they'll prepare for it.
By the third time, it becomes the norm.
The other way to think about this is how you end today’s meetings and conversations. By asking a closed question like, ‘Any questions?’ you’re giving the person across from you an easy pass. They can say, ‘No, all good’, remain comfortable and then must show up to a future conversation to explain why an action hasn’t moved. See where this is going?
The two-way street
The benefit to you as a CEO or senior leader is that the feedback runs both ways.
When a direct report plays back what they heard and something is missing or wrong, the instinct is to correct them. And while calm correction is half the answer, the other half is asking yourself whether the gap in their playback reflects a gap in your delivery.
Was your language clear or layered in your cultures jargon? Did you bury the key message? Did you spend too long on context and not enough on the ask? Did you leave the priority implicit when it needed to be explicit?
The kicker is that playback doesn't just measure comprehension, it measures yours and their communication, and that loop, over time, makes you a better communicator. It will make your direct reports better listeners. And when they take that standard into their own teams, the message you delivered in the senior leaders meeting holds as it travels instead of degrading.
That's where momentum is built. Not in the delivery of a message, but in the standard set around receiving it.
The five words cost nothing. They take thirty seconds. And in my experience, they do more for organisational clarity than most communication strategies I've seen leaders spend months building.
Your agenda moves at the speed of your organisation's comprehension. Most leaders accept a lower speed than they should.
How far could five words move your organisation?
PS If this essay helped, Episode 179 (Clarity starts and ends with the CEO) from my podcast is worth a listen. Tune in on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
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