Communication: It's not you, it's them.

Part 1 in a 6-part series about Communication

Part 1 // Know your audience

I think we all agree that there is no skill more essential to leadership than communication.

However, there are floods of articles and texts out there that claim to know the “right” or the “best" way to communicate.  We forget that our audiences, the very people we are communicating WITH, vary drastically.  We therefore must tailor our actual messages, our style, and even our modality to match the audience’s needs.  

Think of it like this:  You don’t communicate with your child the same way you communicate with your boss.  You don’t communicate with the tech support rep the same way you communicate with a client.    In other words: it’s not you, it’s them.  The very key to effective communication is to KNOW your audience and ADAPT to what works for them. 

 This is a 6 part series.  We’ll explore:

1. Define your primary and secondary audiences.  What do you specifically need from them in this message?  

2. Map out your modalities.  Which channels are best for each audience?

3. Target the call to action.  If they only take away 1 thing, what do you want it be? 

4. Be heard.  How will you sharpen your presence to command the attention you need?

5. Listen.  How will you create feedback mechanisms?  How will you manage ad-hoc questions? 

6. Follow up.  In which ways will you ensure the message was received?

Here we go.  Define your primary and secondary audiences.  

Who is your audience?  This tends to be a “duh” moment for me when working with colleagues.  We so often just want to hurry up and be heard, we forget to reflect and analyze who is the listener, the “consumer” of the message.  

Tip #1.  Write down who the primary audience is.  

...Specifically.  Broad audiences need to be broken down and specified further.  This needs to take the form I need to communicate _[this event]__ to _[this person or group]_. 

Examples: I need to communicate a company policy change to my direct reports.  I need to congratulate my team member Sandra on a job well done.  I need to report the project's results to the Executive Leadership team in the AMERICAS division.   

This allows you to get specific and super focused on your audience.  If you need to communicate more than 1 thing, just write them as separate sentences.  (We may find later that you, in fact, need 2 separate messages instead of grouping them together.  More on that soon).  

“In other words: it’s not you, it’s them.  The very key to effective communication is to KNOW your audience and ADAPT to what works for them.”

Tip #2. What is the outcome you need from that specific audience? 

Yes, you read that right.  What do YOU need?  Here are some examples:   "I need my audience to....

• Have awareness of the information
• Give me assistance, feedback, or ideas
• Understand and retain the specifics of the information
• Provide direction, approval, or another decision
• Take a specific action based on the information

Notice that these naturally help you start to craft what your message needs to contain, and what it doesn't.  These organize into communication types, something like this:

• One-way communication; no response needed
  • Have awareness of the information  
• Potential for two-way communication; there may be a conversational element but you're not blocked from proceeding.
  • Give me assistance, feedback, or ideas
  • Understand and retain the specifics of the information
• Two-way communication, you absolutely need a response
  • Provide direction, approval, or another decision
  • Take a specific action based on the information

Tip #3.  Who else?  Who am I forgetting?

At this stage, write down other audiences that need some tailored, or adapted, version of the same communication.  They may be "downstream" employees or colleagues that need to be aware, or they may be "upstream" people such as leadership.  For example:

• Your team's direct reports (ie, your team's team; your junior colleagues)
• Your operations team and/or administrative assistants (support staff)
• Executive Leadership
• Program or Department leads (your lateral colleagues)

Tip #4. You guessed it - Repeat Step 2 with this secondary audience.

Tip #5. Bring it all together. 

Your work may look like this:

PRIMARY AUDIENCE: I need to communicate a new policy to my direct reports.

PRIMARY NEED: I need them to understand the specifics and address any questions they may have.

SECONDARY AUDIENCE & NEED - 1: I need to tell the support staff (HR, Office manager) of the new policy for my direct reports.  They need to be aware of this new policy even though it doesn't apply to them.

SECONDARY AUDIENCE & NEED - 2: I also need to tell my Leadership team.  They need awareness that I communicated this policy to my team.  

In Part 2 of the series, we'll take this and talk about modalities.  Should you email, hold a meeting, post it on Slack?  Some combination?  Decisions, decisions!  Stay tuned for more... 

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photo courtesy of Timon Studler on Upsplash