It takes earning stakeholders’ trust for an organisation to influence their actions and dispositions. Communication isn’t measured by what you intended to say but by what your interlocutor actually heard.
For understanding to catch up with intent, there has to be a reduction in the distance between what people need to know and what the organisation is trying to tell.
Also read: Banks hold firm as coordinated cyberattacks hit organisations across four continents
In public relations, consistency creates credibility. Credibility creates trust. Trust creates influence. Influence creates opportunities. One major means of instilling trust in people is through shared understanding.
Communication lands when the message reaches the recipient’s doorstep, not when the sender and receiver meet each other halfway.
Going the whole hog is required of the sender because every brand is now competing for the same limited resource: audience attention.
Between receiving a message and acting on it lies a process through which audiences interpret meaning, evaluate credibility, draw upon personal experiences, and decide whether the message deserves their trust. When a brand builds trust, people will enthusiastically buy into whatever it’s offering.
Less is More in Today’s Information World
The UK-based Civil Service College conducted a survey that asked participants in a webinar, “Why do messages fail to land?” According to the findings, a cumulative 70 per cent of the population blamed the failure of messaging to resonate on information overload (28%), competing priorities (24%), and unclear actions (18%).
In a digital world where professionals are inundated with hundreds of notifications, emails, messages, and social media updates every day, your messaging must be scroll-stopping at first glance. This can be achieved not by trying to answer every conceivable question but by providing an answer to the right question first – which is, “What is the one thing people actually need to understand?”
Paucity of information is not at issue, but the dearth of mutual meaning. There you have your culprit: when civil authorities announce well-designed policies that struggle to gain public acceptance, developmental agencies invest heavily in awareness campaigns but achieve limited behavioural change, companies clearly communicate strategic decisions, yet doubts and resistance persist.
These limitations necessitate the question, “Are we informing people, or are we overwhelming them?” In the face of pressure that comes with change, uncertainty, or public scrutiny, most organisations instinctively resort to saying more. Apart from press releases, they publish FAQs, hold town hall meetings, engage talking heads, send more emails, make more presentations, etc.
These only increase the decibel of noise. Effective communication isn’t about piling more information or repetition but reducing friction.
Audiences aren’t comparing your newsletter with that of your competitors but with LinkedIn, Substack, Microsoft Teams, Telegram channels, Slack, WhatsApp, podcast episodes, webinars, and industry blogs.
There are also ubiquitous AI-generated summaries that allow people to consume more information in less time. This highlights the need for brevity and crisp messaging.
Adding more slides to a presentation deck can bury the key message, causing people to walk away with different interpretations of the same conversation.
Go Beyond Informing People to Influencing Outcomes
Communication is not consummated with the delivery of a message. It is complete when understanding is established, trust is strengthened, and people are empowered to make informed decisions.
Today’s digital platforms make it easier than ever to publish content, but publishing more does not automatically create influence. It’s therefore imperative for organisations to be more concerned about providing insight rather than information.
That’s the way to go because institutions daily convey policies that are misunderstood. Public health initiatives struggle for traction despite widespread campaigns with huge budget outlays. Communities reject projects supposedly designed for their benefit.
Organisations invest heavily in communications strategies and tactics, yet remain deficient in stakeholder trust.
It’s counterintuitive to assume that people will understand the value in what you’re proposing because it’s obvious to you.
Communication isn’t just about expressing yourself but levelling up with people of interest at their levels.
A policy update may sound simple to the executives but becomes convoluted once it reaches a store team trying to apply it to customers in front of them.
Sustainable outcomes are achieved when people feel both informed and involved. If citizens understood a policy, they would support it.
If communities could see the benefits of a development initiative, they would take ownership of it. If employees receive enough information about organisational change, they will drive it.
Clarity Chaos Clothed in Communication
Communication isn’t ignored due to lack of access, but because people can’t readily identify the kernel and what is expected of them. Communication tactics are bound to stall when caught in the web of contradictions.
If people leave a meeting with ten different interpretations of the same message, communication has occurred – but understanding has not.
Imagine a company telling employees to embrace a new modus operandi, yet their managers keep rewarding the old way of performing their duties.
That will be issuing two conflicting messages at once. One is contained in the training manual, while the other is cast in behaviour. You can be sure that the unspoken code will be more audible than the spoken message.
When employees are required to change their work mode while the old reward standards are left intact, company culture – not avowed values – will carry the day because people don’t process information with the same celerity they interpret intent. In fact, the memo will be noise in the circumstance. Clarity will always triumph over chaos.
Here are other scenarios where communication is made the scapegoat when clarity is taken for granted:
Priorities changed without explanation.
Two leaders are operating from different assumptions about the same priority.
Ownership wasn’t clearly defined. A decision was assumed rather than made. Five leaders left the same meeting with five different interpretations of the resolution.
People aren’t aligned on expectations, as business objectives were set once and never revisited.
Whether developing a narrative arc or content pillar, writing a press release, advising executives, or preparing a presentation, the communicator must begin with purpose – not content. Be sure to uncover that one idea the reader needs to understand, and everything will flow from the answer. Determine the desired outcome so you can articulate what matters most.
Clarity is also achieved when communicators answer the following questions:
- What belongs in the message?
- What information should be left out?
- How much context is needed?
- What do we want them to do (Call to Action – CTA)?
- What tone best serves the objective?
Final Thoughts
Communication is often viewed as a process of transmitting information, when, in reality, it’s about creating mutual meaning.
Messaging lands when people understand it, trust it, and act on it. Trust will always be the fulcrum for information that influences stakeholders.
When audiences understand the purpose, communication goes from information into influence. This is why communicators should think about outcomes rather than information.
Stakeholders generate momentum with the clarity created by an organisation. Every communication should have one clear idea that audiences can remember long after they’ve been exposed to the copy or content.
That central idea encapsulated in a single sentence becomes the signal that the publics can trust without worrying about intricacies.
Also read: Banks hold firm as coordinated cyberattacks hit organisations across four continents
The compelling message isn’t the most comprehensive or polished, but the one that decisively dispels doubts, dissonance, and dilly-dallying!
Ugochukwu is a branding specialist, storyteller and media trainer who can be reached via nmiringwu@gmail.com
