For communication to be effective, we need to find the right words, the best time, and the most effective channels to reach the right people. Below we’ve put together some prompts to help you think through planning your communications.
Who: the audience
Communications is about people sharing with people. Take a minute to really think about your audience:
- Who they are and how you would speak with them if you were face-to-face?
- What are you asking your audience to do? Is it clear?
- Will it have any impact on work relationships or families?
Who: the messenger
Who is the most appropriate communicator of this information: the supervisor, manager, managing director, or vice-president? Studies, and our own research, show that people prefer:
- Receiving information that will impact their work from their supervisors. Also supervisors know their teams and how different individuals need to hear a message.
- Receiving “Big picture” information from senior leadership. In this case, managers should also be prepared to help to localize the news and address any concerns from their staff.
- Receiving news face-to-face, for many types of information. This allows for interaction and a chance to close the communication loop.
What: understanding the effect of your message
People receive thousands of messages each day from home, work, other organizations, etc. To make you message effective, think about the context where it is being sent and received:
- How important is it to you?
- How important is it to your audience?
- How complex is it?
- What impact will this information have on operations?
- What impact could it have on other units or departments? When will these impacts be felt?
When: timing of your message
When should the message be delivered? The number one rule is that the most-impacted individuals should always know about something before anybody else. People feel more valued if they learn information affecting them before it is public knowledge. In some regulatory environments or with certain types of news this means that the best we can do is share information simultaneously with the public.
Where and How: choosing your channel
Think of communications channels like TV channels. Each channel represents an established way that you can connect with a defined group of people. For example, the audience and programming for the sci-fi channel will be mostly different from the the kid’s channel.
We’ll often choose a variety of integrated and reinforcing channels so that the same key messages are reaching targeted audiences in multiple ways during a set period. You’ve seen this in advertising campaigns: a product will be on TV, in your newspaper, on your computer, on the side of a bus, on a billboard, mentioned in the news, written about in blogs and websites, etc. Each place you see the product is designed to reinforce key messages about the product and entice you to action.