When Communications Strategies Go Wrong
It happens – sometimes, even the most well-intentioned communications strategies go wrong. “What we’ve got here,” as Luke famously says in the film ‘Cool Hand Luke’, “is a failure to communicate”. Though communication strategies span across different mediums and can contain many different messages, there are a few common factors when they fail to achieve their intended effect: the delivery of certain information. Whether the strategy is wide-ranging and complex, or even a simple discussion at a personal level, there are a few notable ways that some people simply fail to communicate.
Listening
Too often, communicators take the ‘broadcast’ component of their message, and focus their efforts on crafting and improving it to the detriment of actually making sure their message is the correct one to send in their particular context. Better communications skills are ones that are adapted to their environment, whether it is selecting a timely topic for a public speech, the content of a press release, or even simply pondering the next sentence in a conversation. All of these examples will be limited in their effectiveness if they aren’t based on other communication that has preceded them – either transmitted or received. In this case, the principle of listening holds a great deal of weight, and can ensure communications strategies remain effective.
The ABC’s
There’s a key guideline for many forms of communication, and it can be distilled into an alphabetical pattern – Accuracy, Brevity, and Clarity. In many cases, communications strategies are needed in order to convey information to explain something, whether it’s a common challenge, event, or even a bit of gossip! American General Douglas MacArthur was once quoted as saying that giving orders that could be understood wasn’t as important as giving orders that couldn’t be misunderstood. If your communications are kept accurate, brief, and clear, whoever receives them will benefit.
Know When to Communicate
You may have sharpened both your sending and receiving skills when it comes to communications strategies, but a crucial element to making sure they’re effective is judging when to utilise those skills. It can be a substantial waste of time to communicate when no-one is listening, after all. This is of prime importance when choosing a medium for any communications strategy. A far-fetched example, but a memorable one, is sending an email bulletin out when the target recipients don’t have computers. Without proper timing, and confirmation a sent message will reach its target audience, sending a perfectly-crafted message and listening for feedback will have little effect, no matter how well both aspects are conducted.
Presentation
There are many communications strategies going on at a given time. The same areas for communication might be targeted by many different people, in the same manner as several people shouting at each other in a small room. It becomes very difficult to distinguish specific messages unless they are somehow unique. In written communication, choices about fonts, colours, and incorporated images make the possibilities for distinct communication almost limitless. In technological terms, someone may be heedless of multiple text message alerts on a mobile phone, and more attentive to an alert for an incoming call. In presenting any form of communications strategy, it’s important to maximise its uniqueness in order to maximise its effectiveness – if it’s not saying something important and unique, why is it saying anything at all?
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