Goal-Driven Communication (Information, Emotion, Action)
Every message needs a goal: what they should know, feel, and do.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~days to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 88%
Abrahams holds that all communication, planned or spontaneous, must be goal-driven, and a goal has three parts: information, emotion, and action — what you want the audience to know, how you want them to feel, and what you want them to do. Before walking into a room where he might be questioned, he answers those three questions. Combined with relentlessly focusing on what's most relevant to the audience in the moment, this makes communication more concise and clear, especially when paired with a structure.
Origin
Goal-driven communication with its information/emotion/action framing is a core principle Abrahams teaches for achieving concision and relevance in spontaneous speaking.
Core principles
- 01All communication, planned or spontaneous, needs to be goal-driven.
- 02A goal has three parts: information, emotion, and action.
- 03Focusing on the audience's relevance, like a magnet, sharpens concision.
- 04Knowing your goal keeps you from saying more than you need to.
How to run it
- 1
Define the information
Decide what you want the audience to know.
- 2
Define the emotion
Decide how you want the audience to feel.
- 3
Define the action
Decide what you want the audience to do.
- 4
Focus on relevance
Continually ask what's most important to this audience in this moment and pull everything toward it like a magnet.
Pro tip Abrahams demonstrated this live by choosing a pitching example specifically because the audience was full of entrepreneurs.
In the wild
Because Hala told him the audience was full of entrepreneurs, Abrahams deliberately chose the pitching structure as his example — a live demonstration of focusing on what's most relevant to the audience.
→ The content landed as directly useful to listeners, showing goal-driven, relevance-focused communication in action.
Common mistakes
Communicating without a goal
Speaking without defining what the audience should know, feel, and do leads to unfocused, overlong messages.
Ignoring audience relevance
Failing to ask what matters most to this audience right now makes it impossible to be truly concise and focused.
Is it for you?
Best for
Anyone who wants to be more concise, relevant, and clear in any communication.
Not ideal for
Casual, aimless conversation where a defined goal would feel forced.
From the transcript
“All communication, planned or spontaneous, needs to be goal-driven. A goal has three parts. Information, emotion, and action.”
“What do I want the audience to know? How do I want them to feel? And what do I want them to do?”
From the episode
Matt Abrahams: Spontaneous Speaking for Entrepreneurs, How to Communicate Confidently On the Spot
Matt Abrahams