3 Reasons why Leaders need to be Relentless Communicators
My first role out of university was as a marketing strategist for The Courier-Mail and The Sunday Mail. Any advertising and marketing professional during that era would be able to rattle off the importance of advertising ‘frequency’ for ensuring your message was absorbed and remembered by your target audience. And whilst the industry has well and truly evolved since the 90’s, and measurements far more sophisticated, some of the base principles still apply today to leaders of people through change and uncertainty.
“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place”.
George Bernard Shaw
Of the most effective leaders I have seen in my work, the ones who are phenomenal at leading others through flux, are those who implicitly understand the need to communicate relentlessly. At a recent safety conference that I spoke at, a panel discussion member stated “you need to communicate relentlessly. It will feel like you are swimming upstream against the tide, but you cannot underestimate the importance of repeating key messages”. Not to be confused with rhetoric (think TV show ‘Utopia’) here are three reasons why leaders need to communicate relentlessly:
It helps people focus on the things that matter
Even if you feel like a broken record, never stop communicating why the work being done matters. It helps focus a team towards the outcomes desired and why the contribution they are making is making a difference. Whilst you may be overly familiar with strategies and discussions at a higher level, too often leaders forget that their teams have not been exposed to this at all. Repetition to you doesn’t always translate the same way to others.
It lifts people out of drama and unimportant detail
As human beings we are constantly making meaning out of things we see, hear and experience. If we have gaps in knowledge and information, then more often than not, we are wired to predict or interpret what we believe is going on - which often becomes 'our truth'. This is where our storytelling can all of sudden take on a life of its own, and where leaders can help people out of the drama and detail inevitably created in uncertainty, to move towards a more strategic and purposeful focus.
We’re more distracted than ever before.
We know from neuroscience that the brain can only focus on so many things at one time – we are in the most distracted era we have ever lived in and people are filtering continually which means often, snapshots of messaging are missed, misinterpreted or just plain forgotten. Those of you who are Monty Python fans will remember the famous scene in The Life of Brian here, where in addressing the crowd, the people at the back haven’t quite got the full speech – “Blessed are the cheesemakers, what’s so special about the cheesemakers?”.
Leaders need to be prepared to communicate relentlessly to provide clear, consistent, courageous and connected messaging.
Ask yourself the following questions when you are communicating with your teams:
Is my messaging meaningful to people? Have I removed needless jargon? Do they feel a connection to the message?
Is my messaging purposeful, driving a focus toward performance?
Am I insightful to the impact my messaging has on others? Am I prepared for the kinds of push back or questions that may follow? Is there a metaphor or story that can express what I’m trying to say more succinctly?
Have I primed myself for the fact that relentless communication is part of my role and essential to meaningful progress?
In flux, leaders can foster a positive working environment by showing up consistently and communicating relentlessly the messages that matter.
