No matter how strong one’s financial model is, if one cannot write a logical, compelling story, then investors are going to look elsewhere. And in my business, that means death. – Darren Whissen, Director of Research at Waveland LLC
When you’re managing as much change as corporations globally must deal with today, the ability to communicate, and communicate effectively, is so important that it ought to be a core capability in a business school curriculum. – Richard Anderson, CEO of Delta Air Lines
Leaders spend bulk of their time communicating. Up, down or laterally, within or outside the organisation, one on one or in meetings, they give and listen to presentations, write emails, reports, blog posts, texts, tweets, etc. The main reason communication is important is not just the frequency but the quality.
in the past, employees were told what, when and how to do their jobs but in these new world it’s really not efficient. A leader must get things done and they also have to trust others to do their work. This also comes with employees acting on their feet and not waiting for their bosses orders to get anything done. According to Henry Mintzberg “managing is about influencing action”.
And as for purpose, don’t settle for “I want my words to work.” Visualize specifically what you want the words to do. Make the readers see something? Make them feel certain emotions? Perform certain actions? Change their minds? – Peter Elbow, Writing with Power
Planning Communication
Time always feel short, for a manager there is always something that need to be done. Daily communication does not always need a lot of thought but sometimes, it does. Hence, taking time to adequately compose a though t before releasing it to the world (communicating), aids effective communication.
Analysing a communication situation
For communication to happen:
- The sender has a purpose for sending a message;
- The sender creates a message to achieve the purpose;
- The audience receives the message and the purpose is achieved.
There are two basic facts of communication:
- The precise intention for the message in the sender must be clear;
- They must have information about the audience of the message.
There are three questions for analysing a situation, these would help you organise your thinking and result in useful understanding:
Why? Purpose, what do you want to accomplish from communicating. For managers, communication is either for informing – educate: describe or explain, what is the information gap I want to feel – or persuading – think, feel and act in regards to something, getting everyone on the same page and it is a process not an event, it takes time and one has to be intentional. It is the language for business leadership.
Who? Audience, the people I will be communicating with. Communication is about the audience not the person communication. Determine what you want your message to achieve, then think and understand the audience. With these you should be able to achieve the message’s purpose. Questions to help you explore your audience:
- Who is my audience?
- What do the members of my audience know about the topic?
- What is their stand on the topic? Are there any biases present?
- What is their attitude towards me?
- What’s my attitude towards the audience?
