Consumer Insights and Communications — Part II

I had the opportunity to see David Grossman, author of “You Can’t Not Communicate.” David’s presentation reminded me of a lot of fundamentals about communications we can tend to forget.

Some of the problems people continue to have with communications:

1. They believe people are born natural communicators or they’re not.  You become a good communicator by deciding you’re going to focus on this critical business skill and you practice communicating always looking for ways to improve.
2. People have an innate fear of failure.  Rather than staying in an uncomfortable situation, get out there, risk failure and be open to learning and improving.
3. Good communication is common sense but few people practice it and practice is critical to success.

David suggests three ways to change your thinking about communications:

1. Remember that everything you do communicates (e.g., office door open or closed, who you eat lunch with, do you have an agenda for your meeting).  Be more purposeful in your actions and your communications will be more purposeful.
2. To be a leading communicator, people must follow you.  You must create a vision people can act upon.  You cannot lead without communicating.  Everything you do, everything you communicate, should be advancing goals.
3. Differentiate yourself by spending more brainpower, energy and time before you communicate.

David shares the eight key questions all employees have:

1. What’s my job?
2. How am I doing?
3. Does anyone care about me?
4. What’s going on?
5. What’s our business strategy?
6. How are we doing?
7. What’s our vision and values?
8. How can I help?

These eight questions are similar to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs in that employees are concerned about their personal needs before they’re concerned about the company’s needs.  Questions 1 through 4 should be answered by the employee’s supervisor.  Questions 4 through 8 should be answered by senior management.  Obviously with question 4 overlapping the supervisor and senior management — they better be in alignment.

David argues that communications is a super power.  To develop your communications super power:

1. Understand your audience. 
2. Make your messages clear, compelling and relevant.  Bring the truth to life, don’t “spin.”
3. Plan your communication and practice.
4. Set the context and make information relevant.  Relevancy is critical for employees, customers and prospects.
5. Listen and check for understanding.  If something goes wrong on your team, ask yourself what context you failed to provide.
6. Select the right vehicle.  Face-to-face is superior to phone which is superior to an e-mail or memo.
7. Communicate with truth and integrity.  People want the truth and they want it now.  If they don’t get it, the rumour mill will create it.
8. Match words and actions.  Inconsistency = lack of integrity.

Are you ready to develop your communications super power?