What happens in communication?

In a very simplistic model, communication is made up of formulating a message and sending it to an intended audience, irrespective whether he or she needs or even wants the message, or not.

Giving presentations is a very common form of conveying a message and a great deal of effort is put into preparing a presentation before actually giving it because the sender has the desire that he or she wants to be heard. The person preparing and giving the presentation (not always the same person!) use his or her perception of the audience as well as what message should be conveyed. Then, the more stunning a presentation is, it is hoped that the message will be conveyed even better. Potentially unproductive hours can be spent on "designing the slides" hoping that the audience "will hear what I have to say". Or, if time is at a premium, to take some existing presentation and to somehow reshape it to fit the forum.

Let us challenge this perception

The audience has several options:

a) to listen and act

b) not to listen an not to act, to ignore

c) not to listen but to act anyway, usually not in the desired or intended fashion

d) unable to listen (technically then, not a captive audience)

e) unable to act because he / she is not empowered to

In all the above scenarios, except the first, there is a potential conflict between the person sending the message and the intended recipient of the message.

This leaves the sender with four options:

a) to accept this, (which begs the question, why was it done in the first place)

b) to try and influence the recipient so that he or she "gets the message"

c) keep repeating the message, on and on and on and....

d) change the message

All these options can be deemed as unsatisfactory as they are in their nature inefficient. They either focus on the person or the message. In fact, the message could be the right one, the person may be the right recipient, but the combination of both may be the cause of the problem.

So, is there an alternative?

Basically yes, but it is not easy to come by. There are no quick wins!

In finding the alternative, you need to analyse:

the message itself, the resulting action, the persons, how, where and when the message was conveyed and the value added of the message. In short, you need to analyse the entire environment surrounding the message.

The information you take from this "experience" can be collected and analysed for patterns. As a result, the following can be deduced:

any common denominator

any contradictions

any activity which recurs at regular intervals which somehow impacts your message.

When you have recognised such patterns, and more importantly, recorded them, then they can be used to help you prepare the ground better for you to convey your message more effectively.

Of course, this is often done in debriefing sessions, but often done instinctively and the result is that organisations often have many "impressions" but no real tangible information on what impact any intended communicating of a message actually has.

Finding the patterns

Gathering the information needed is challenging, especially in a complex organisation. So it is important to start in ones immediate environment and gradually let consecutive circles work into the rest of the organisation.

The success of this lies in the acceptance of such a method and the willingness to invest in the time to do such an exercise. Usually, an outside organisation can be far more effective here. All data is collected and processed and this will reveal certain patterns.