Hi all

It’s time for another addition of the book club and this week I thought I’d share ‘chunk sizes’ with you. Chunk what?! I hear you cry. Well chunk sizes are a great way to win arguments and great way to keep you focused on what’s important. Jeremy Paxman is very good at chunk sizes. So is the Daily Mail.

So, a chunk size is all about how we interpret and deliver information. It is a way of communicating. You’ll either communicate in a detailed and specific way or you’ll communicate in a big picture, headline kind of way. Everyone is different and if you are at the opposite end of the spectrum to someone else you’ll be likely to clash.
Here is a real example that happened to me this week with my ex-neighbour (I still own the flat so I still have to communicate with her).
By the way, my flat has a leaky roof:

Her: There is a leak in my ceiling coming from your terrace – you need to fix it, it’s your roof
Me: No it’s your roof, it’s my roof terrace
Her: It’s leaking through your roof terrace
Me: My roof terrace isn’t designed to stop water - your flat roof is designed to do that
Her: I’m not going to pay - I have a crack in my ceiling
Me: Nor am I, it’s not my roof, it’s yours
Her: But it’s your terrace...
Time out – as you can see at this point we’re not getting very far. We are both in a ‘detailed chunk size’ which is creating a blame frame and a potential row.

Time to change chunk size – time to go ‘big picture’
Me: Ok it is a roof – that means we are all responsible for the roof of the property
Her: Well the others might not agree with that – I’m not paying, I have a crack in my ceiling
Me: But it is a roof isn’t it.
Her: Yes
Me: And if it’s a roof then we are all responsible - and we will be covered by the buildings insurance
Her: Errr yes
Me: So the most important thing is to get the roof fixed and the insurance should cover it – I’ll call the insurance company...

When you see both halves of the conversation written down, it’s easy to see how effective ‘chunking up’ can be - I moved away from the detail and focused on what the big picture was – in this case it was to get the roof fixed.
The trick is this - before you go into a conversation or a potential row, decide what the most important thing you want to achieve is first. Ask yourself ‘what’s the big picture here’?

Once you have that fixed in your mind it will become much more difficult for the other person to ‘drag’ you down to the detail and into an argument.
This technique works in reverse of course but I’ll save that for next time.

Mark & Scott