What’s a Kansas PCMH? The Sequel. Or the Cool Things about Elevator Speeches.

While sequels often get poor billing, (After all, who can top the original?) I have decided to do my best to provide you with a more tantalizing experience than the one you may or may not have had with Part One-The Original. For those of you that missed Part One-The Original you can find it on this blog.  For the rest of you, I’ll just pick up where we left off.

As I struggle to explain the Patient Centered Medical Home (PCMH) Concept, I have tried to reframe it into one of my favorite forms of business communication – the elevator speech.  To explain a business concept or idea, many successful individuals often turn what is referred to as an elevator speech, or perhaps you’ve heard of it referred to as an elevator pitch.  Basically, you break down a complex concept into something the person you are conversing with can remember.  Whether or not they actually remember, or even repeat it to someone else, is often determined by how well you crafted your speech. There are no hard and fast rules for the speech, only that it is first and foremost meaningful to your audience and short, sweet and to the point so they can remember and (hopefully if it’s valuable enough) repeat.

Cool Things

For the PCMH speech, I know that I’ll have to craft multiple versions for the individuals I am engaged with at the time.  Sometimes I’ll be talking with health care consumers like myself.  At times I’ll be conversing with health care purchasers (employers) or providers (physicians and the like) or vendors or policy makers.  And over time, I will have to change what my speech looks and sounds like based on what I’ve learned.  And, I’m okay with that.

You see the first cool thing about an elevator speech is that it doesn’t have to be a speech in the traditional sense of the word.  It can consist of key words that can be morphed (primarily due to our synonym-extensive English language) on an as needed basis to create a truly meaningful exchange.  The second really cool thing about elevator speeches is that they are co-created.  That’s right.  You heard me. You don’t have to make these things up on your own.  So, how do you do that?  How do you find a co-creator or creators?  Ask.

Take the time to learn about who your audiences are, what’s important to them, what their pains are, what they care about.  It was Habit Five of Stephen R Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People that he shared this pearl of wisdom and sound advice: “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.”  This is true of all communication.  I have been very blessed in that my business communication professor at the University of Oklahoma, Dr. Betty J. Robbins, pounded into my head through her sage classroom instruction: “Know your audience.”  This has guided me well through many communication experiences and activities.  And while she still might give this blog a “C”, I thank her every day that this very important three-word mantra has stuck.   

So, in the spirit of this blog…. Tell me a little about yourself.  It is my goal to understand.

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What’s a Kansas PCMH? The Sequel. Or the Cool Things about Elevator Speeches.