I am considered to be a strong communicator (so my boss tells me), but I still find myself talking too much, and going off topic at times. So I've put some thought into this just for my own profession to try and get better at it.
In a work context:
- Some people just follow their train of thought wherever it leads. It works OK in their internal working life, because it leads them interesting places. They may not realize that they have to maintain a clean "interface" with the external world and have some of that chatter not cross that boundary.
- Some people have hangups. They like to draw the conversation to their own things which make them look good.
- Some people are just self-centered. I don't mean conceited as in full of themselves necessarily, but as in they really find it difficult to see the world through another person's viewpoint. The world only exists through the viewing pane of their own interests and experience.
- Some people over communicate when they are nervous instead of keeping it crisp. I do this. It's important for me to be relaxed in a meeting where I am presenting.
- Some people just don't know how to gauge their audience. They try to explain the whole "elephant" when asked about it, instead of trying to scope the answer to the audience's level of expertise and the scope of the question. Imagine a blind man considering a vacation to Africa asking, "What's the dangerous part of an elephant?" - Well, it's partly the pointy things on its face, but also they are gigantic and ill tempered. There, I answered it in a concise way, but you can imagine (say) a nerdy zoologist getting wayyyy into the details of anecdotes of the myriad ways elephants have killed people.
- Playing dumb, by the way, can be a sneaky way of setting people's expectations to gain an advantage. See: The scene the Shlomo character in "The Honourable Woman" has near the end of the season where he admits that as CEO of a telecom that he actually understands all the tech from the top to the bottom. And that people's expectation that he doesn't reveals things about them in their interactions.
In a work context:
- Some people just follow their train of thought wherever it leads. It works OK in their internal working life, because it leads them interesting places. They may not realize that they have to maintain a clean "interface" with the external world and have some of that chatter not cross that boundary.
- Some people have hangups. They like to draw the conversation to their own things which make them look good.
- Some people are just self-centered. I don't mean conceited as in full of themselves necessarily, but as in they really find it difficult to see the world through another person's viewpoint. The world only exists through the viewing pane of their own interests and experience.
- Some people over communicate when they are nervous instead of keeping it crisp. I do this. It's important for me to be relaxed in a meeting where I am presenting.
- Some people just don't know how to gauge their audience. They try to explain the whole "elephant" when asked about it, instead of trying to scope the answer to the audience's level of expertise and the scope of the question. Imagine a blind man considering a vacation to Africa asking, "What's the dangerous part of an elephant?" - Well, it's partly the pointy things on its face, but also they are gigantic and ill tempered. There, I answered it in a concise way, but you can imagine (say) a nerdy zoologist getting wayyyy into the details of anecdotes of the myriad ways elephants have killed people.
- Playing dumb, by the way, can be a sneaky way of setting people's expectations to gain an advantage. See: The scene the Shlomo character in "The Honourable Woman" has near the end of the season where he admits that as CEO of a telecom that he actually understands all the tech from the top to the bottom. And that people's expectation that he doesn't reveals things about them in their interactions.