You want to talk to me
Go ahead and talk
Bob Dylan
Effective communication is the cornerstone to every successful human organization of any size or type. Without effective communication all else is mere dysfunction because communication is our only means of channeling directives, ideas, and inspiration and fostering an environment of productivity, cohesion, and growth.
Communication is the second of the four elements of leadership that all great leaders practice—the 4 Cs: character, communication, compromise, and collaboration.
Moreover, at the core of impactful communication reside three interwoven and equally vital components, the three keys necessary to unlock effective communication: message, audience, and clarity.
The first key is a valuable message. Simply put, You must have something to say, and that something must be worth saying. Therefore, the best messages are rooted in understandable and relatable values.
The messages that bosses deliver fall into two primary categories, informational and inspirational. Most are informational, and such messages may at first appear to have nothing to do with values. In reality, though, solid values, while perhaps not contained within the informational message, must undergird it.
Here’s a quick check. How many time have you reacted to informational emails from your boss with an eye roll or skimmed through overly verbose messages that make only one firm point: I don’t respect your time? Alternately, have you ever had a boss who was such a stickler or a jerk that you perused every missive like it was scripture, saved them all, and sometimes even printed them out “to have a record?”
With either of these situations you are dealing with a boss whose values stink and, subsequently, whose messages are not to be valued. They mostly just distract you from the business at hand or generate fear and paranoia, the enemies of productivity.
The same is true of inspirational messages. They must be rooted in values. I know of a university president who used to give frequent speeches about good leadership and teamwork. The content of the speeches was sensible, having been written for him by an aide, but whatever value they contained was sapped by the behavior of the president himself. Even as he gave his lofty speeches he violated their principles, talking down to his people and lording his position over them. The evident hypocrisy could be excruciating for his captive audience, and the messages subsequently just fell flat, with people audibly scoffing as he spoke.
Which brings us to the second key of communication: a known and receptive audience. While you must have a valuable message to deliver, you also must understand who will be receiving it, or otherwise you will struggle to connect. Also, your audience must be open to hearing your message. All this requires respect for your audience as well as personal integrity. In short, to whatever extent possible, you must hear from and be sensitive to your audience before they can hear from and be sensitive to you and your message.
At that same university I mentioned before, the president would often bring in leaders from various industries to talk to top administrators. For whatever reason, some of those experts assumed they were talking to faculty, which just wasn’t the case. This disconnect between who they thought they were speaking to and who was actually in the audience always resulted in a failure to communicate.
Moreover, even when the audience is known, their receptivity is pivotal. For instance, imagine that those experts were, in fact, speaking to the faculty. Since none of the speakers were teachers or educators themselves, the faculty would be appropriately up in arms. Even if the message were perfectly sound, it would be difficult for professors to sit quietly through such a professional insult and presumptuous of the speaker to continue in that vein.
Here is another truth to keep in mind when considering your audience. In communication, the listener has all the power. I call this the “messaging paradox.” Your audience can hear you, ignore you, or imagine you said something entirely different from what you actually intended, and you have little say in the matter. The ear is mightier than the mouth!
Of course, what the listener hears often has to do with the third indispensable key to effective communication: unyielding clarity. So, you have an important message to deliver and a known audience that is primed to hear it. Unfortunately, your delivery is unclear, and no one understands it as you mean it. Therefore your message is lost.
The essence of communication lies not in verbosity or complexity but in lucidity—ensuring that the message traverses seamlessly from sender to receiver. Would you address a group of English speakers exclusively in German? Would you speak to civil engineers using medical jargon?
Clarity is, in part, a function of knowing your audience since it can differ from listener to listener. Just as addressing English speakers in another language would make your message meaningless, you need to tailor your style to your audience as best as possible so it gets through to them. Otherwise, what is the point? The best message badly delivered is no good at all.
Simply put, clarity trumps everything, meaning that you need to do whatever it takes to be as clear as possible. Even the rules of grammar are secondary to the clarity imperative.
Years ago, I was asked to found the School of Humanities and Social Sciences as a new dean at my university. In order to foster a spirit of cooperation and collaboration among the seven disparate departments and 15 disciplines that would comprise the new school, I created representative working groups to develop various foundational documents. I personally headed the one charged with writing a statement of purpose for the school.
That group was highly collegial from the outset, and we each agreed that our statement would serve as the core of our fledgling culture. Despite all our goodwill, though, we struggled with the very language we wanted to use and therefore failed to achieve clarity. Our main sticking point was that each of our disciplines had its own specialized vocabulary—its jargon.
Once we recognized this disconnect, we could see our way out. We abandoned jargon in order to build a common language around shared values, which is really all a statement of purpose is. That common language made our message and values clear, and the statement could then resonate within our school as well as with students and the general public. Long after I left that university, the statement was still in use.
A valuable message, a known and receptive audience, and unwavering clarity. The absence of any one of these elements will disrupt your ability to communicate effectively. Furthermore, the more robust each element is, the more impactful your communication will be. Great leaders know that solid communication is at the heart of organizational success, so prioritizing all three keys of effective communication is vital to team progress.
How well do you communicate in all situations? How aware are you of the three elements of communication?
Effective leaders must become effective communicators, and I can help.
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