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Communication is a Tricky Art

Communication is important.  We all know that right?  What I’ve learned in my profession is the art of communication really is an art.  We can say the most obvious things in the simplest ways and still have confusion amongst a few people.  You can state a simple fact……For example, one communication of mine was, “We are moving to a new location! Paychecks will be available a day early this week since we will be closed on Friday.”    And still, I had two people show up on Friday to get their paychecks and one person showed up at the new location to pick up a check. How can this be?  I put notices in their paychecks for three weeks in a row explaining this simple fact.

So what have I learned after 10 years in a profession working with all different levels of personnel?  People only “hear” what they think is important to them.  By starting my sentence with ….”We are Moving,” I started my sentence with a fact that seemed important only to my company, not to the temporary worker.  If I started the sentence with “Your paycheck will be ready Thursday” I know I would have gotten better readership.  Communication not only has to be clear and concise, it has to state the reason it is important to the reader right away in the first sentence or first few words.

At one point, I had concluded only lower level personnel would behave this way and then our Attorney temporaries were causing me the same headaches on different topics.  Timesheets were coming in late and without client approval.  The Attorney temporaries may not have cared about when paychecks would be ready because they don’t tend to pick theirs up each week. But timesheets are required for each worker, so they didn’t listen when the recruiter explained how and when these were due.  We had to change the way we communicated the fact to state that the company for which you are temping wants to approve your hours each week so they can be billed weekly.  Eager to please their new company/boss, the temporary worker began getting the timesheets to us on time.

Be Concise.  I like to be an exact person. It is hard to be both exact and concise. Being in my profession for a decade has taught me the average reader only reads the first few sentences and skims the rest…or most of the rest.  People seldom read and entire email, or entire mailing.  I used to surmise the best communication would be clear and state all the details with action points at the bottom, at the natural conclusion of the correspondence. WRONG!  People don’t get to the bottom.  State your requirements and action points at the top of the document or presentation, be very concise, and give opportunities for more details but don’t necessarily spell them all out in one communication.  Expect people are reading it quickly and in a distracted state.  You can give options to get more details by reading another document, by reading future correspondence, at a website, at an additional meeting or by asking questions.  The people that search out these additional details will be more apt to read the information and those not apt to ask for more details will have the main nuts and bolts of the communication from the more concise document.

Why does the media rely so heavily on the 8 second sound bite?  To tempt us so we tune in later for the full story AND because that is all the time we give them. So when you are communicating to staff or any group of people keep in mind a short attention span is all you get….it is really all you have to create interest in what is in it for them.

In order to take the philosophy of giving the people what they want, your communication MUST:

  • Give  required action(s) in the first few sentences
  • Immediately tell why the correspondence matters to the reader
  • Be concise with avenues to obtain more information
  • Conclude with a summary of the main points

If you put these recommendations to the test, you will find your communication has just improved!

                                                Written by: Renee Fulton, Talis Group, Inc.