Say what matters
Learn why and how to deeply connect with your audience
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The core of human interaction relies on clear communication. It shapes the ways we bond, understand and live in the world. If the purpose of communication is to send and receive messages that we can all process, then why are so many corporate communications mind-numbingly boring and confusing?
This is especially true in companies with pretty vertical hierarchies. Leaders tend to not share much information, which creates a feeling of a secret agenda that brings uncertainty to the team. Besides, the people in charge of corporate communications might not have much to work with, or they might not even know the real purpose behind what they’re doing and are just following direct orders from their managers, which gets in the way of communicating deeply and smartly. If there’s not a proper culture applied to internal communications, the chances of becoming just another ignored email are big. How can we truly engage through corporate communications?
Start with a reason
If your team doesn’t know why you’re asking them to do something, they probably won’t do it. Communicators sometimes take it for granted, thinking the ‘why’ of what they’re doing is not important or too obvious. Knowing the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ is really important, but the ‘why’ adds real value.
You might have lost touch with the heart of your mission, or you might not even have one defined yet. Author Nancy Duarte describes three strategies to find your ‘why’ on Harvard Business Review:
Ask yourself ‘what’ several times. The answers to your ‘why’ are usually inside you, and you can find them if you ask the right questions. Trying to apply the ‘so what’ to all of your answers until you can’t answer them anymore is another good way of digging in.
Complete your answers with a ‘because’. This is important when you’re communicating as well, since the true purpose lies behind it. Whatever the reason that follows, takes you closer to your ‘why’.
Address potential perspectives you’ve eliminated and why you did it, this demonstrates that you actually considered all the possibilities and chose only the top ones.
How you say it matters
Taking an idea and turning it into an exciting story that’s able to transport you to wonderful places is a hard task. Like any skill, the art of storytelling takes practice, but if mastered, it can take your corporate communications to another level. Forbes Communications Council has discussed the best methods to engage with their audiences: from provoking an emotional response and putting yourself in other people’s shoes to setting a list of target words and making your story multisensory, their conclusions have been beyond interesting.
Another reason corporate communications come out dry and confusing is because of unclear and unconscious business jargon which is ineffective when it comes to connecting with audiences. People might stop reading after the first two sentences. Plain English, however, is making its way throughout industries and governments alike since it is a faster and friendlier way to read and write. Some of the keys are to keep sentences short, use active verbs and avoid nominalizations (that is: nouns created from adjectives or verbs), making corporate communications engaging and interesting.
Best,
Andrea.
Edited by: Lauren Maslen.
Have feedback? Let us know at hello@productivegrowth.com
EDITOR’S PICKS
⌨️ Our Addiction to Acronyms (ATA): Do you have an addiction to acronyms and is it making your communication less efficient and effective? This article from CEO Magazine explains why an overabundance of acronyms can make corporate communications confusing and hard to digest.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
How to approach difficult conversations with your manager. (Pt 1.)
Managing difficult conversations is a soft skill everyone should work on improving. No one likes to hear their employee has a condition that will jeopardize their health and the way they work. Productive Growth’s Camila Mirabal shares her experience with the subject and some initial tips to handle it in a more empathetic manner. Check it out here.
SCROLLING THROUGH
The way you present data is just as important as the data itself, explains storyteller and former Googler Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic. Hear how Knaflic builds a visual story and engages with her audience in her Talks at Google presentation, “Storytelling with Data: A Data Visualization Guide for Business Professionals.”
DISCOVER
Slack has become such an important part of my life, I feel like I’m missing an arm when I’m working without it. Even though it has a predictable and easy-to-use interface, there are some things hidden in plain sight that could totally change the way you use the service (and the way you work). Check out these 50 Slack Hacks that are so effective they can even help you replace your work mail if you want to!
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