Earlier this month I wrote about an incredibly inspiring 16-year-old leader from Stockholm, Greta Thunberg. In 9 months she has gone from a lone figure on strike from school, protesting out front of the Swedish Parliament, to gaining worldwide recognition.
How did she do it? By using communication techniques that some leaders never figure out!
Three keys to successful communication:
- Clarity. When we communicate, we need to be clear. Poor communication happens when people use lots of jargon, or worse, complicated language. Jargon and complex language serves, in my experience, only one purpose… to make the person delivering the message feel that they are smarter than other people. Einstein once said: “If you can’t explain it to a 6-year-old, then you don’t understand it yourself.” Keep your message simple, clear and concise.
- Purpose. Human beings all process information the same way. We think in terms of ‘why, what and how.’ In that order. It has to do with the speed in which different parts of our brain process information and sort out emotion from logic. When we are crystal clear about the ‘Why’ in our communications, it helps the target of our message process in a logical order and motivate them to action.
- Persistence. Humans need to hear a message between 7 and 10 times in order to fully process it. These days with the added complication of how different generations of people consume information, we have to use multiple different mediums to broadcast our message (face-to-face, email, text, social, video, etc.). Communicating once over one method will not work. Be persistent. I always tell myself that. When I started blogging 7-years ago, for the longest time I only had a few followers. By being persistent, I am now blessed to reach thousands of leaders each week.
So remember, if you’re communicating an important message to your team, and they don’t seem to be getting it, the problem may not be them. It may be because you’re not being clear, or you’re not letting them know why it’s important, or you only communicated it once and they missed it. Check out your own communication before you start blaming your team for not listening.
Robert Murray is a Vancouver, BC based Business Strategy Consultant, #1 Best Selling Author, International Keynote Speaker, and TEC Top Speaker of the Year for 2018. For further advice, insight and inspiration on how to unlock your inner leader, follow Robert on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.
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Tags:
Business Communication,
Communication,
Jargon,
Leaders,
Leadership,
Persistence,
Purpose,
Successful Communication
